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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




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SCENES IN THE EVENTFUL LIFE 



Mary W, Few Richardson 



EDITED BY 



ELIZABETH T. LARKIN. 



He that goeth forth and -weepeth, seed of grace in sorrow bringing, 
Laden with his sheaves of glory, doubtless shall return with singing." 

— F. R. Havergal. 



COLUMBUS, OHIO: 
William G. Hubbard & Co. \ '/> „ 
1894. 






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Copyright, 1894, 

BY 

MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 



J?*£H£NOTOW 






Debtcation, 



TO THE MEMORY OF 

MY SAINTED MOTHER, 

WHO MANY TIMES TOOK ME BY THE HAND IN MY 

CHILDHOOD, AND KNEELING 

BY HER BEDSIDE COMMENDED ME TO THE 

CARE OF 

HER COVENANT - KEEPING GOD, 

THIS BRIEF RECITAL OF MY EVENTFUL LIFE IS 

GRATEFULLY DEDICATED. 



CONTENTS. 



Chapter I — Early Days 13 

A Sad Picture — Birth and Parentage — Appren- 
ticeship — Conversion — Fullness of Blessing. 

Chapter II — Labor and Persecution for Christ's 
Sake 26 

A Probationer — Return to Downham — Sabbath- 
school — Persecutions — Love for Missions — Dis- 
appointment — Predestination. 

Chapter III — A Mingled Cup 41 

Tea -meetings — Mother's Death — A House-keeper 
— Father's Second Marriage — Death of Brother — 
Two Years in Ely. 

Chapter IV — Sunshine and Shadows . . . 51 

Marriage — New Home — Feltwell Fenn — Primi- 
tive Methodists — Birth of Child — Black Frost 
and Ruin — Leaves Feltwell Fenn — Husband goes 
to America — Death of Older Brother — Crossing 
the Ocean — "Land Ahead!" 

Chapter V— Dark Days 67 

Landing in America — Fresh Disappointments — 
A Troublesome Suitor — A Black Night — A Ter- 
rible Temptation — Going to Boston — Guided to 
Amherst — Sickness of Child. 



6 CONTENTS. 

Chapter VI — A New Church Home 84 

Renovation of Methodist Chapel — Trip to James- 
town — Camp-meeting at Eastham. 

Chapter VII — Trip to England 92 

On the Ocean — Meeting with Friends — Reminis- 
cences of Ministers Heard in Girlhood, Dr. Beau- 
mont, Billy Dawson, "Squire" Brook, Mr. Cousins, 
and Others — Last Meeting at Ely — Incidents by 
Land and Sea — At Home Again. 

Chapter VIII — Woman's Hour 108 

Trouble in the Church — Shall Women Speak in 
Meeting? — Later Convictions — Women in the. 
Professions — Woman's Ballot. 

Chapter IX — The War . 127 

Removal to Nashua — Husband Enlists — Visits 
New Haven — Letters from the Army — Ports- 
mouth Grove Hospital — Flying Trip to Amherst 
— Recall to P. Grove — Death of Husband — New 
Haven — Is War Justifiable? 

Chapter X — The Kaleidoscope Changes . . . 144 

Return to Amherst — Marriage — Visit to Brook- 
lyn — A Fresh Anointing — Trip to California, 
Salt Lake City — Impressions of San Francisco — 
Home Again — Church Fairs, etc. 

Chapter XI — The Great Commission 169 

Mercy Drops — A New Helper — Letters from In- 
dia — " Lilies of the Valley " — Last Hours of Mag- 
gie Langford — Discouragements — A Missionary 
Hen — Farewell Meetings of Clara Cushman. 



CONTENTS. 7 

Chapter XII — Temperance 191 

First Blow — Black Night at Feltwell Fenn — 
Black Night in New York — The New Fish Mar- 
ket — Respite in Service — End of the Fish Mar- 
ket and its Proprietor — Death of Robert Few — 
Local Work in Amherst — Seventieth Birthday — 
Temperance Work in Hillsboro County, N. H. 

Chapter XIII — Incidents in Business Life . . . 230 

Money Supplied in Times of Need — Honesty in 
Business — A Chicken Supper Won — A Thief 
Overtaken. 

Chapter XIV — Special Baptisms 289 

First Anointing — Last Night of Old Year — Stir- 
ling — Epping — Manchester — Hamilton — Christ- 
mas, 1890. 

Chapter XV — Gleanings 247 

Parable of the Robins — Tribute to a Husband's 
Generosity — Revival Under Brother Wolfe — Ap- 
peal to the Young — Two Death -bed Scenes — 
Death of Grandson — Death of Husband — Closing 
Words. 



PREFACE. 



Tt is hardly probable that any word of mine will 
add to the interest of this personal narrative, 
and yet I deem it a privilege, as a friend of many 
years, to pen this prefatory note for the author of 
this sketch. 

I have read the story in manuscript, not as a 
critic, to amend or change its phraseology, but as 
a friend in sympathetic mood; and I have been 
lifted and depressed as the varied and striking 
experiences of life were here unfolded. 

For thirty years I have known something of the 
life here portrayed. The eye, the ear, the hand- 
shake, the occasional greetings at our homes, have 
kept us in touch, and the fire of friendship in con- 
stant glow; but I have not really known my friend. 
We have here the story of her life, but her genius 
in word painting can give us no more than an out- 
line view. She tells us of the parting of the ways, 
days of special sunshine or gloom, incidents full of 
sadness or joy, great issues bravely faced, and deep 
problems wrought out under the hand of God; but 



10 PREFACE. 

it is easily seen that her life runs deeper and 
broader, and includes a thousand-fold more than 
the skillful pen can possibly trace. And, indeed, 
the story of no life can be told, though it be one 
of even cadence, whose years are simply the addi- 
tion of days of common likeness. 

We have in this story a two-fold life, English 
and American; contrast and weigh the two. The 
scenes constantly change ; time, distance, surround- 
ings, friendships, occupations, home interests, per 
sonal experiences ; a kaleidoscope view, yet clearly 
and strongly one life; one personality stands all 
by itself amidst the rush of years and the ever- 
changing tides. The English girl full of enthusi- 
asm, and sitting at the feet of Jesus ; the American 
woman engaged in business, and active in multi- 
plied reforms; the Mary of England, the Martha 
of America, " careful and troubled about many 
things," and yet the two, by the power of grace,, 
blended and harmonized in one. 

This story is told in simple style, and flows 
naturally from beginning to end as recollection 
draws from the store-house of memory. But v^ho 
may trace the influence of this life, study it in 
childhood, in young womanhood, as wife, mother, 
widow, woman of business, evangelist, temperance 
advocate, missionary worker, or in age and retire- 



PREFACE. 11 

ment? You will read the story, but the subtle 
power of the life is not to be scanned by the human 
eye. Our friend has had the opportunity above that 
of many to touch the currents of social, religious, 
and public life with peculiar power. Young men 
studying for the ministry have been welcomed to 
her home, and have received life-long impressions 
from her kind ministrations. Her persuasive voice, 
full of melody, rich in pathos, and fired at times 
with surprising eloquence, has moved to new resolve 
and purpose hundreds of earnest souls. When en- 
gaged in evangelistic labor in the church, or on the 
platform in behalf of the "Woman's Christian Tem- 
perance Union," or when laboring for the extension 
of Christ's kingdom by the organization of mission- 
ary societies, her influence has been carried as upon 
"the wings of the wind," wherever He, who is above 
all, hath "listed." 

In this book are treasures of precious influence, 
for some how, and in some way, my friend has 
locked into each word and sentence something of 
herself. Your eye and mine must be the instru- 
ments to unlock the doors, that she may appear to 
touch with somewhat of her old-time power both 
heart and brain. 

This little book will accomplish its mission. It 
may be to tell for the first time to late-made friends 



12 PREFACE. 

the story of the life they have learned to prize. It 
may be to preserve in connected form a story told 
in fragments to old-time friends. It may be to 
inspire with hope and courage some tired and 
tempted soul. It may be that in its inception the 
author has herself so lived her life again from child- 
hood to age, that there has come to her a clearer 
vision, a more tender spirit, a stronger faith, and a 
deeper consecration. In any case, it can not have 
been written in vain. 

This little narrative will find a place in the home 
of many a friend, whose heart has already welcomed 
and enshrined its author. 

Yours sincerely, 

G. F. EATON. 

Salem, Mass., Nov. 22, 1893. 



CHAPTEE I. 

EARLY LIFE. 

4 'Take my life, and let it be 
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee : 
Take my moments and my days, 
Let them flow in ceaseless praise. 
Take my hands, and let them move 
At the impulse of Thy love ; 
Take my feet, and let them be 
Swift and beautiful for Thee. 
Take my voice, and let me sing 
Always, only, for my King : 
Take my lips, and let them be 
Filled with messages from Thee. 
Take my intellect, and use 
Every power as Thou shalt choose ; 
Take my heart, it is Thine own, 
It shall be Thy royal throne." 

SOFT ANSWEK turneth away wrath." So 
reads an old motto now looking me in the 
face as I sit at my desk. This wonderful 
piece of penmanship was executed by 
George Appleby, a young stranger on board the old 
" Manhattan," tossing on the Atlantic ocean, March, 
1852. 




14 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

The wild winds of March, for twenty-nine years 
have come and gone since then, yet a group of five 
stands out from the nine hundred on board as viv- 
idly as if it were but yesterday. Husband, wife, 
babe, sister, brother — there they stand ; pale, 
troubled, aloof. The husband a young, light-haired, 
delicately organized man of twenty six summers, 
with bowed head and quivering lips, shattered by 
the rough winds of misfortune; the wife a year or 
two his senior, tall, dark, sad, yet determined ; the 
babe, pale and delicate like her father, looking as if 
one rude gale would waft her to the " Better Land." 
There, too, stands the husband's sister in her quiet 
dignity, looking like a crushed flower, and by her 
side her brother, the young lad of fifteen, with his 
noble, frank and ruddy face now paled by sickness. 
They form together a forlorn group indeed. The 
passengers look at them and pass silently by. The 
captain and mate confer together. Plans are made 
to interest, if possible this sad family. 

All the time one eye, unseen by mortals, is 
watching; one hand, and that a pierced one, is 
weighing the burden, ere He lays it on the shoulders 
of the young wife and mother. For years she has 
been praying: "Nearer, my God, to Thee;" for 
years the tribulum has been passing over her, yet 
the chaff is not all separated. And now the hand of 



EARLY LIFE. 15 

Infinite Love is weighing this added burden, the 
care of this famity in a strange land. Methinks I 
hear Him say : " I will glorify myself in this weak, 
erring child of mine. I will add still more to her 
cares, her burdens, her sorrows ; but she shall know 
t hat underneath are ' the everlasting arms.' I will 
offset her weakness with my almightiness. The 
fragrance of my sustaining grace under severest 
trials shall reach her native land, as well as the land 
to which she goes in sorrow. Yes, I will be glorified 
in this my weak, trembling child." 

This child, the writer of this narrative, the daugh- 
ter of Charles and Susan Walsham, was born in 
Dunham, Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire, England, 
early on the morn of September 13, 1821. Her 
advent was hailed with great joy, as the rest of the 
children were boys. Often did my father, when 
interrogated concerning his family, jocosely remark : 
" I have indeed been entrusted with a very large 
family — fifteen boys — and each of them had a sis- 
ter." I was the only daughter in the family. Only 
three of the sons grew to manhood, and of these one 
only is living to-day. 

My father, Charles Walsham, was a local preacher 
in the Ely Circuit. For nearly fifty years he preached 
a full and free salvation. He was not an educated 
man, and earned a living not by his profession, but 



16 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

by the sweat of his brow." Still, he was a man of 
rare natural endowments, had a wonderful gift of 
language, and was often solicited to preach upon 
special occasions. 

He once went many miles to hear the celebrated 
Doctor Robert Newton preach. From some cause 
the preacher failed to be there. A vast congrega- 
tion was waiting. Scores of preachers were present^ 
but all seemed to shrink from the task of trying to 
fill his place. My father was urged again and again 
to preach. At last, with a beating heart and un- 
steady step he ascended the platform. He had no 
manuscript, as he never wrote a sermon in full in 
his life. What text should he choose ? Throughout 
the singing, the prayer, and all the opening exercises 
the words " What is man ? what is man ? " rang 
through his soul. He knew not its place in the 
Bible, or its full connection, till he opened his lips 
to announce it for his text. Then a flood of light 
and liberty rested upon him for over an hour, and 
the uneducated local preacher was indeed God's 
mouth piece. Many said he had never before 
preached as he did that day. Surely God does take 
" the weak things of the world to confound the 
mighty." 

My mother was an humble, devoted Christian of 
the olden stamp, plain in her dress as a Quaker, 



EARLY LIFE. 17 

earnest, impulsive, gifted in song and prayer. Ah ! 
I hear the sweet, clear voice now, and see the tears 
rolling down her cheeks, as, "Am I a Soldier of the 
Cross ? " and other old-time hymns fell from her 
lips; and I hear her say, " No, glory! hallelujah! 
Praise ye the Lord! No, glory! hallelujah! I will 
love and serve the Lord ! " How faithfully she did 
it, with a large family, overburdened with work and 
many cares, and no one to fully sympathize with 
her but her God, He knows. Her record is on high. 
In his strength she steadily moved on, often " faint, 
yet pursuing." I look back now and see how much 
she depended on the Blessed Comforter in those 
days of toil. She was so different from my father ; 
he could never fully understand her. He was 
strong, stern, self-reliant ; she, loving, clinging, full 
of generous sympathy, self-forgetful, self-sacrificing. 
How often my heart has been touched at the sacri- 
fices she would make for husband and children, and 
how bitter have been my tears in later days that I 
did not give her less of sorrow and more of joy. I 
thought her too strict, too exacting, and, Oh ! how 
I rebelled ! God forgave me more than forty years 
ago, but I can never forgive myself. I remember 
once stealing away to play cards with some other 
young girls. My mother in some way learned our 
rendezvous and came suddenly upon us. The cards 



18 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

were quickly hustled out of sight, but her eyes were 
too sharp not to see the confusion on all faces. She 
chastised me — me, a girl of nearly fourteen years 
— and, u Oh ! how " the old Adam " in me rebelled 
against it. My thoughts and feelings towards that 
dear mother were too wicked to be put on paper. 
Many a time since then I have thought if tears of 
blood could wash away their memory I would be 
glad to shed them. To this day my heart aches 
whenever I recall that and other similar scenes, 
though blood far more precious than mine has 
washed the stains away. 

At fifteen I left home to learn a trade. Sickness 
in the family had kept me from school till I had 
grown so large that pride forbade my going again. 
My father urged the matter, knowing how bitter 
would be my regrets in after life; but my dear 
mother said : " The child has her mind set on learn- 
ing a trade, and it will take her from her giddy 
companions, and will perhaps be for the best." So 
in August, 1836, I went to Haddenham, Isle of Ely, 
to learn millinery, dressmaking, and straw work of 
Mrs. Robertson, a dear mother in Israel, whose hus- 
band was an official member in the church, class 
and choir leader, and a devoted Christian. The 
family were very kind to me, and often the prayer 
went up to God for Mary, the new comer. A min- 



EARLY LIFE. 19 

ister's daughter — oh! how often did the tears run 
down my cheeks under the influence of those 
prayers; but I had resisted light and knowledge 
again and again. Conviction, deep and pungent, 
had been mine at times for years. I can not 
remember the time when I did not feel remorse 
after any sin; even a sinful thought would often 
cause me to weep before God ; and yet, when again 
with the young and gay, my sorrow would be thrown 
to the winds. At this time I did not scruple to 
deceive my parents, even though it required a false- 
hood to gain my point. Oh, the evil of wicked 
companions! How true it is that sinners "join 
hand in hand," but they do not " go unpunished.-' 
Well do I remember one night when, after card 
playing, I retired and attempted to pray. I was as 
much withstood by the Spirit of God as was Balaam 
when the ass spake to him. Though alone in my 
sorrow, I seemed to hear a voice, saying: "You 
hypocrite! What, just come from the card table, 
lied to your parents, and now kneeling to pray?" 
Oh ! the agony of that hour, not daring to pray, and 
yet not daring to lie down to sleep without it, lest 
I should open my eyes in hell. My punishment 
seemed so near I thought the devil was in the 
room with me. I seemed to hear him breathe. In 
my terror I fell on my knees. I should have 



20 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

screamed for father and mother, but how could I 
tell them what a wicked girl I was ? Could I break 
their hearts by telling them I had not only lied, but 
gambled on a small scale ? ( For it was simply 
that.) No, no; I must cry to God, and I did, with 
the perspiration streaming from me. I cried : Ci O 
God ! spare my life through this night, and I never 
will play cards again, or tell another lie." I feared 
the punishment due to sin. After my confession 
and prayer I retired almost exhausted to weep 
myself to sleep ; but with the light of morning the 
fear departed. I felt, however, that a vow was 
upon me. A short time after this my parents gave 
a reluctant consent for me to attend a party. Soon 
cards were introduced, and I was asked to join, but 
declined. Then the sneer went round : " Oh, you 
are getting pious. You are going to be a Methodist." 
( It meant something to be a Methodist in those 
days.) I could bear anything but ridicule. That 
was too much for my good resolves, and in sheer 
desperation I sat down to cards again ; but Satan 
outwitted himself that time. For on retiring again 
with a guilty conscience lashing me, I felt my will 
too weak, my strength too feeble to resist ; and cry- 
ing to God to help me, promising that if He would 
I would never play cards again, I stood alike 
unmoved by laughter and sneers. Although not 



EARLY LIFE. 21 

converted, God helped me to resist that one tempta- 
tion. Should any youthful eye fall on these pages, 
let me entreat you, dear young reader, to cry to God 
for help in time of temptation. Never a day after 
that but I felt the strivings of God's Spirit, and 
many times prayed God in His providence to remove 
me from the influence of the wicked around me. 
The village in which I lived was leavened with high 
Calvinism. The doctrine of predestination and fore- 
ordination was presented to the people in this wise. 
If an individual was elected to be saved, he would 
be saved; if not so elected, nothing that he could do 
would be of any avail. So parental restraint or 
guidance was a rare thing. No wonder the young 
people followed the bent of their natural inclina- 
tions. I look back with a shudder as I think of the 
evil results of such teaching. It was with joy that 
I received the consent of my parents to leave such 
companionship and go to Haddenham, and I have 
thanked God many times that I was allowed to go ; 
for although I lost an education by so doing, I found 
there what books could never give. 

Early in the spring of 1837, a local preacher — a 
man of little talent — came to the place to preach. 
I shall never forget his words that Sabbath forenoon. 
I have forgotten the text, I have forgotten much 
of the sermon, but I shall never forget these words, 



22 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

which went like a dagger to my soul : a It may be 
there are children here this morning, who, if their 
parents were taken from them, could go and stand 
by their open grave and say, ' Here lies a father or a 
mother who has counseled me, advised me, wept 
over me, prayed for me; but, oh! how I have neg- 
lected it all 1 ' " I tried to hide my tears as con- 
science said: "It is you he means." Oh! yes, I 
knew it was I. I knew God meant it for me, and 
that burning, fiery dart was not drawn from my soul 
till it was quenched in the blood of Jesus. Oh, 
glory, glory be to God ! It was an old-fashioned 
conversion, through and through. For three weeks I 
cared not for food or sleep. I felt as if I could weep 
my life away for sinning against such light and love. 
I did not doubt the power of God to save me, but I 
looked so black I felt God could hardly be 5x1st to 
forgive such a rebel. I saw how I had again and 
again broken His law. I saw how I had almost 
broken my mother's heart with my willfulness. I 
thought there never was so great a sinner for one so 
young, and she a minister's daughter. If God for- 
gave me, could I ever forgive myself? Dear Mr. and 
Mrs. Robertson prayed with and for me, and did all 
they could to help me "into the pool." I met with 
Mr. Robertson's class, and attended all the means of 
grace, but with a heavy heart — oh, so heavy! Well 



EARLY LIFE. 23 

may the Book of Divine inspiration say. " The spirit 
of a man may sustain his infirmity, but a wounded 
spirit who can bear ? " At the end of three weeks, 
at the young people's prayer meeting on Monday 
evening, Brother Robert Whiting, who led the 
meeting, said : " Mary, we will pray for you, but 
you must pray for yourself.*" I did so; and as I 
prayed : " O, Lord, forgive my sins. I know they 
are many and great, but Thou canst forgive. Thou 
art able and — willing. Yea, Lord, I believe Thou 
doest it now." — Oh! such a flood of light, and a 
voice, as plainly heard as if audible to the natural 
ear, said : "Arise, shine, for thy light has come, and 
the glory of the Lord has arisen upon thee." I 
jumped to my feet. I havn't grown weary of jump- 
ing yet. That was, indeed, a jump for joy, and the 
light that then dawned on my pathway has never 
ceased to shine. It has been obscured by pride, or 
self, or worldliness at times, so that I have cried out 
like David: "Restore unto me the joy of Thy sal- 
vation, and uphold me with Thy free spirit ; " but 
glory be to God, the elasticity he put into my soul 
and into my step at that time is not gone yet. My 
heart was as light as a feather as I bounded up that 
hill, and the very houses and trees looked as if they 
wanted to clap their hands. My soul kept singing : 
" Come, all ye who love the Lord, and I will declare 



24 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

what he hath done for my soul.'* And oh! I thought 
if I could only go home to Downham and tell all my 
giddy friends what a joy was in my soul, they would 
all want the same. They saw, when I reached home, 
that my burden was gone, and what a tender prayer 
of thanksgiving was offered by Mr. Robertson the 
next morning at the family altar. Thank God for 
the help of that good man. How kindly and ten- 
derly he guided my young feet in those early days. 
How sweetly the weeks flew by. The dear old 
Bible and the " Pilgrim's Progress" had a new 
value ; the services of the sanctuary were, indeed, 
food for my soul, and day by day I " grew in grace 
and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ." 

One day, a few weeks after my conversion, a 
young girl treated me unkindly. My quick, impul- 
sive spirit was aroused, and I spoke hastily. I shall 
never forget the dismay that filled my soul. What, 
I a Christian, and get angry, speaking harshly, feel- 
ins; as though I wanted to strike back ! What, was 
this religion ? I thought religion was to save us 
from bad temper — to make us love our enemies. 
Was I deceived after all ? Was it all a delusion ? 
No, no! a thousand times, no! That could not be. 
I knew I had a heavy burden, because I had sinned ; 
and I knew, also, that God, for Christ's sake, had 
forgiven me all the past. But this new exhibition of 



EARLY LIFE. 25 

sin — what did it mean ? Then, like a flash it came 
to me : this is the a body of sin " from which I have 
heard older Christians pray to be delivered. Then I 
cried mightily to God : " O, God, I want a clean 
heart. I want the religion of Hester Ann Rogers, of 
John Fletcher, of Bramwell, of all those good men 
and women who lived like Christ. ( Thank God that 
before conversion I was in love with religious biog- 
raphy, and had read much.) I know now that I 
sought the blessing of a clean heart as earnestly as I 
had previously sought justification, and in my room, 
after praying till nature gave way, I fell asleep, and 
awoke repeating : u Peace I leave with you ; my 
peace I give unto you. Not as the world giveth, 
give I unto you." The room seemed flooded with a 
radiance unlike the sunlight — so soft, so heavenly. 
Tears of joy ran down my cheeks. That was years 
ago, but I know now that it was the time when the 
Lord sanctified my soul. Oh, yes, the blood — the 
precious blood, had done its work ; the child's heart 
was at that moment clean. Oh, that it had kept 
under the blood all these years! I might — yea, I 
should have had a more brilliant crown ; more stars 
would have been won for the decking of that crown 
to lay at the dear, pierced feet. O, my God, who 
shall tell the loss this world has sustained by 
churches, by its members not being clean in heart — 
not wholly the Lord's ? 



CHAPTER II. 

LABOR AND PERSECUTION FOR CHRIST'S SAKE. 

" Must I be carried to the skies 

On flowery beds of ease, 
While others fought to win the prize, 

Or sailed through bloody seas?" 

No, glory ! hallelujah ! praise ye the Lord ; 

No, glory ! hallelujah ! I'll love and serve the Lord. 




Wherefore putting away lying, speak 
every man truth with his neighbour : 
for we are members one of another. 
Ephesians iv. 25. 



E 



idem 




LABOR AND PERSECUTION. 27 

)N THE YEAR 1837, 1 received my first ticket 
of membership on trial in the Methodist 
Church. This ticket bore the name of the 
society, date of its establishment, the date 
of the quarter when given out, a text of scripture, 
the name of the one to whom the ticket was issued, 
and the signature of the conference minister. These 
tickets were only given to those who " walked 
worthy of the vocation to which they were called, 1 ' 
and in case of the holder of such a ticket leaving for 
another place, constituted his ticket of admission to 
similar meetings. If a member was absent from the 
class three times in a quarter, without a satisfactory 
excuse being given, the ticket was withheld. If 
only the Methodist Church were as strict in her dis- 
cipline to-day as in that earlier day, we should see 
much less that is God dishonoring within her 
borders. 

At the close of the same year I returned to 
Downham, strong in the Lord. I found not one per- 
son who professed faith in Christ, such had been the 
deadly effect of the preaching of predestination from 
a Calvinistic standpoint. I found a little dilapidated 
chapel with a membership of a few old people, 
among whom my father and mother took the lead. 
My father being a local preacher, was away nearly 
every Sabbath. I saw and felt that there was much 



28 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

to do, and, my young heart being warm with love to 
Jesus, I began work at once by organizing a Sab- 
bath School of thirty- three members. This step was 
taken after much prayer. 

God wonderfully blessed this school with its 
young girl superintendent of only seventeen years 
of age, who was also teacher and general manager. 

Many trying incidents in connection with this 
school as well as some amusing ones, recur to the 
memory of the writer. There was one bad boy who 
was in the habit of stationing himself at the door of 
the chapel, and with one of his companions trying to 
trip up the poor old ladies as they went down the 
steps into the chapel. Eather a dangerous thing to 
do, as, had they been tripped by his hooked stick, 
they might have fallen head long down the steps 
and been seriously injured. 

I stationed myself in the shadow one evening, 
and detected this mischievous Phillip, seized him by 
his ears and held him, while I sent another boy, to 
whom I had given sixpence to do the errand, for 
a policeman, or constable, as we called them, to 
put him in the " cage." Going on the principle that 
he should be " well shaken before being taken " by 
the constable, I shook him thoroughly, and then 
tried a little moral suasion. I told him if he would 
promise me faithfully to join my Sabbath School, I 



LABOR AND PERSECUTION. 29 

would let him off. As he seemed to relent, I called 
back my messenger till a final decision was reached ; 
and on the boy promising to do as I wished, he 
was released. He kept his promise, not only be- 
came a constant attendant, but was converted ; and 
when I left the place he became superintendent of 
the Sabbath School. He said in after years that 
Mary Walsham shook religion into him. The fear 
in these days seems to be that if wholesome discip- 
line is administered to a child it will shake all the 
goodness out of him. In this case it certainly oper- 
ated quite the contrary, and had an excellent effect. 
Parents and guardians of youth, take notice. 

Trials were by no means wanting. How God 
has in all ages of the world used the weak things to 
do his bidding. After seasons of almost overwhelm- 
ing weakness, strength like that of a giant would be 
given in answer to prayer. But that strength must 
be tried. God permitted persecution to test the 
faith of this young girl. The fun-loving, mischiev- 
ous Mary of old, had been changed into Mary sitting 
at Jesus' feet and learning of Him. Her flowers 
and ribbons thrown aside, her Quaker cottage bon- 
net and simple dress called forth volleys of ridicule 
as she walked the street. Groups of boys and even 
men would shout after her: " Jumping Jesus," 
" Roaring Lion," " Look at her old bonnet ; it is like 



30 MARY W. R RICHARDSON. 

looking down Ely Cathedral to get a glimpse of her 
face." Sometimes showers of stones would follow 
the laugh and jeer; but that young soul in those 
moments tasted the sweetness of a Savior's love 
unknown to her persecutors. 

One Sabbath morning in June, 1838, a clear, 
bright day, returning from Sunday School with a 
group of little children, singing and chatting along 
the common street by a newly trimmed hedge, we 
found directly in front of us across the street (which 
was a back street and not much frequented) a hedge 
of thorns and briers made of the trimmings of the 
wayside hedge, which had evidently been placed 
there by mischievous hands to obstruct our path. 

The words of old Jeremiah, Ci He hath hedged 
me about that I can not go out," came at once to my 
mind. Then as I thought that Jeremiah's God and 
deliverer was my God, and would be my deliverer, 
the tears of joy coursed down my cheeks. One little 
fellow, God bless him, I wish I could remember his 
name, looked up into my face and seeing my tears, 
said : " Never mind, Miss Walsham ; we will soon 
make a gap," and suiting the action to the word, he 
seized a thorn by the corner of his jacket, and pulled 
it out. The others helped, and we soon passed 
through with thanksgiving. 

The clean white dress of the teacher was neither 



LABOR AND PERSECUTION. 31 

soiled nor torn, but the enemy was not satisfied ; for 
hardly had my feet touched the sidewalk when a sod 
of black earth and grass, thrown by some unseen 
hand whose owner was hidden behind the hedge, 
landed squarely on the top of my head. Thank God 
it was like " water on a duck's back." It did no 
harm, it did not even stick to me. Many times in 
these latter years I have felt that if we had a little 
more persecution we should have stronger chris- 
tians in all churches, and fewer puny, sickty disciples. 
Soon after this occurrence the little village had a 
command from on high to halt a bit, and think. A 
strong man was suddenly stricken down. Death 
found him all unprepared. His agony was very 
great, and in his dying moments he cried : " Dark ! 
Dark ! All is dark ! " The following Sabbath even- 
ing at the prayer meeting, I was led to ask God that 
some of us might* put off a preparation for death 
till the summons came, lest we, like our neighbor, 
should have to say: "Dark! Dark! All is dark!" 
Satan, as in Job's day, was present, and one of his 
emissaries went to the father of the one who had 
died, and said : " That Mary Walsham said in her 
prayer last Sunday night, your son William had 
gone to hell." The old man, in his fury, exclaimed : 
kC She shall pray no more. I will kill her. I will 
kill her the first moment I can reach her." Soon a 



23 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

friend called on me and said : " Don't go down 
street to-day. Don't, for your life, go by Mr. D.'s 
shop. He swears he will kill you for saying his son 
has gone to hell." 

Dear mother, I think I see her now, saying with 
tears : " My child, don't go in the way of that old 
.man." As if to test my faith, even as Daniel's was 
tested, a message came to me to call on my Aunt 
0. on business. To get to her I must pass that 
man's shop. Although my mother had been a 
heroine in faith for many years, her mother love 
seemed here to out-weigh her faith, and she said 
again : " My child, don't go by that shop." But 
the Spirit of God flashed into my soul the courage 
of the three Hebrew children, and I said : " Mother, 
the God of Daniel, the God of the three who were 
cast into the " burning, fiery furnace," will take care 
of me. If it will glorify Him for me to live I shall 
live ; and if I am to die I am not afraid. I shall go 
by the shop." I went to my room, bolted the door, 
fell on my knees, and told Jesus all. Calm and 
happy I dressed and went. The street was only 
paved on the side opposite his shop, and as I walked 
on the paved side he saw me as I drew near. I saw 
the quick jerk that threw open his collar ; I saw him 
push up his sleeves ; then he seized a billet of wood, 
and with his eyes positively glaring with rage, he 



LABOR AND PERSECUTION. 33 

rushed across the street, cursing as he came. A 
tremor passed over me ; then, all was calm and 
still, and looking him steadily in the eye, I said : 
" Mr. D., the God whom I love and serve will not let 
you hurt a hair of my head. I did not say your son 
had gone to hell. I don't know. God does know." 
The old man's rage was fearful to behold, but his 
arm trembled so that the wood fell to the ground, 
and still swearing and foaming he returned to his 
shop. With tears falling fast, and a feeling as if all 
my strength had left me, I reached my aunt's. 
Thank God for that trial of my faith. It gave me 
strength in after years when fresh trials came. 

The years 1838 and 1839 were years of earnest 
work for the dear Master. I had been forgiven 
much and loved much. Oh ! how often my heart 
and voice sang : " If all the world my Savior knew, 
then all the world would love Him, too." A wonder- 
ful love sprang up in my soul for the heathen, and 
my first day's work, after learning my trade, was 
making a missionary box; and so earnestly did I 
labor to collect for the cause of missions that it was 
thought to be almost a mania with me. Often did I 
feel I must go myself and tell poor, benighted ones 
the story of the cross. Often was my voice heard 
singing about the house: — 



34 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

" Yes, my native land I love thee, 

All my scenes I love them well; 

Friends, connections, happy country, 

Can I bid you all farewell ? 

Can I leave you, far in heathen lands to dwell ? 

I would often find mother in tears, and she would 
say : " My child, I fear I am selfish. You are my 
only daughter, and I fear I am not willing to have 
God call you to His work in foreign lands. " Oh ! 
but God makes His people willing in the day of His 
power ; " and when, months after, the call came to 
join mj r lot with another in this work, the mother 
said : u If it is God's call I can not say, No." 
After months of earnest prayer and consideration 
the decision was made to remain with my parents. 
Eternity will reveal the reason of my decision. If 
it was wrong God has forgiven, and overruled all for 
His- own glory. At this critical period in my life, a 
period through which most young people pass, when 
the heart is made conscious of the drawings of an 
earthly love stronger than it has hitherto known, a 
young, talented stranger, a minister of God, came 
across my path His genial spirit, his kind atten- 
tions, his superior talents all combined to render 
him peculiarly attractive, and as he sought my com- 
pany and our friendship increased, my affections 
were won ; and when his farewell sermon was 
preached, his place vacant, and he had spoken no 



LABOR AND PERSECUTION. 35 

word such as his previous demeanor and attentions 
would warrant, my heart was almost broken. The 
agony of the following days, and of one night spent 
upon my knees before God, when He, indeed, 
met me and gave me a sweet resignation to His 
will, I desire no other young girl may ever know, 
unless she has the strong arm of the Almighty on 
which to lean. How careful should young men and 
young women be in their friendships, and how 
guarded in expressing more than they really feel. 
The sadness of that time, had it not been for the 
grace of God, might have wrecked me. As it was, 
it threw a shadow over my whole life, which has 
never left me. Years after, he acknowledged to a 
mutual friend that on the night of his farewell 
sermon he detected the strength of my attachment 
for him, and realized that he had not been guarded 
in his manner as he should have been. God helped 
me through this trying time, and my interest in His 
work did not flag. The more I labored in His cause 
the stronger grew my love for it. 

About this time God had so blessed the Sabbath 
School that it numbered about ninety. Seventeen 
of the young people were formed into a class, and I 
was appointed their Jeader. The parents of some 
of these young people were very bitter against 
Methodism, and thought their children were becom 



36 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

ing fanatics. Threats and bribes were used in the 
endeavor to keep them away from the Methodist 
meetings. A strong sermon having been preached 
on Arminianism from the text, u Yea, doubtless, 
and I count all things but loss for the excellency of 
the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord," much 
discussion was aroused, and some of the leading 
men of the place met together one evening to talk 
over the matter, continuing their sitting till past 
midnight. One of the men presented the following 
epitaph, inscribed on the tombstone of four little 
children drowned in early childhood, and demanded 
an answer to it. The epitaph was as follows : 

" Beneath this stone four infant ashes lie ; 

Say, are they lost or saved? 
If death by sin, these sinned, for they are here ; 
If heaven by works, in heaven they can't appear." 

A bottle of wine was pledged if an answer could 
not be given by a girl in her teens by the next 
evening, and the epitaph was brought to me with a 
request that I would answer it. I knew nothing of 
the meeting or the wager, but immediately penned 
the following reply: 

"You ask, are they lost or saved? 
Saved, indeed, I would ever cry, 
And by God's word I will tell you why: 
Our Savior a command has given, 



LABOR AND PERSECUTION. 37 

To suffer little children to come, 'for of such is the 
kingdom of heaven.' 
It is not for original sin we are damned, 

But for actual transgressions, I say ; 
And judged we shall be for the sins we commit, 

At the last and the great judgment day ; 
Then as these children no sin did commit, 

How can we believe they are lost, 
Since the Savior paid off the original debt 

When he bled and expired on the cross?" 

The man who carried my answer won the wager. 

Then a certain Mr. Gadsby was sent for to come 
and preach against the " wild-fire," as Methodism 
was called. He came, and I shall never forget the 
close corner that was secured for me very near 
the pulpit, where I was surrounded by Calvanistic 
zealots, who expected to see the disturber of their 
peace annihilated. The text I do not remember, 
but the voice, the manner, the denunciation, are as 
fresh as if witnessed yesterday. He said : " Is there 
an Arminian here ? Let me tell you, poor soul, you 
are a sworn enemy to the Bible, and the Bible is a 
sworn enemy to you ; and unless you come to the 
cross and see yourself just ready to be damned, and 
double damned, your portion will be an eternal 
hell." ( He seemed to forget his theology, that if 
elected to be damned, no amount of seeing or 
feeling could prevent it.) With tearful eyes and a 



38 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

tremulous voice, I said : " Thank God, 1 love my 
Bible, and God loves me, Arminian though I am." 
If looks could have closed my lips, they would have 
been closed forever; but for forty long years they 
have been opened to declare a full and free salva- 
tion. Glory be to God ! The preacher went on to 
describe a so-called Methodist revival. He said : 
" The fanatics preach hell-fire and brimstone till 
poor, little children and weak-minded people begin 
to cry. Then they are called to the ' anxious seats,' 
and somebody will kneel and say : c Don't you 
believe on the Lord Jesus ? He came to save you. 
You feel bad for sinning, don't you? ' And the poor 
things say : ' Yes, yes.' Then the so-called helper 
will say : ' Jesus says he will save you ; don't you 
believe it ? ' The reply drawn out will be : c Yes, 
yes.' ' Well, then, don't you feel better?' ' I think 
I do.' Then up jumps the preacher, or teacher, 
shouting: 'Glory to God! Here is another soul 
born into the kingdom,' and then they sing. Oh, 
oh, you poor souls, who deal in this hell opium, 
when the judgment day comes there will be as 
much squeaking and squealing as there is with rats 
and mice in a corn-stack when it is on fire." Poor 
Gadsby ! I have often wondered how he died and 
what he found. That night some of the lambs of 
my little fold were forbidden ever again to attend 



LABOR AND PERSECUTION. 39 

the class meeting. Some continued to come, stead- 
fast to the end, have finished their course, and are 
waiting for me by the " Beautiful Gate." Some still 
live. Some began, after that night, a downward 
course. One was found lying dead at his own door. 
He died " as the fool dieth." One for years wan- 
dered about seeking rest and finding none till, in 
the silent midnight watches on picket duty in 
Florida, he regained his lost treasure, the favor 
of his God, and could say when dying : " I give my 
life cheerfully for my adopted country, and I die as 
a soldier — I die at my post." 

How my young heart, in the months that fol- 
lowed that day's preaching, was rent with anguish. 
Often did I seek the solitude of my own room, say- 
ing, like the weeping prophet, u Oh! that my head 
were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that 
I might weep day and night for the slain of the 
daughter of my people." I shall never forget my 
utter desolation as my dear mother said : " My dear 
child, you could scarcely expect all of them to stand 
firm. I have seen so many begin and fall out by the 
way." This had never come into my thoughts for a 
moment. I failed to see how a forgiven sinner, 
with his heart filled with peace and joy, could ever 
think of forsaking such a precious Friend and loving 
Savior. The language of my own heart has ever 



40 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

been : u Let everything else go — home, friends, 
reputation, health — yea, life itself, but let me keep 
my precious, three-fold Friend. True, there have 
been moments in my life when I have cried out, 
" Oh, why is this, if God loves me ? " But I have 
had to acknowledge it to be the result of my own 
waywardness and my Father's faithfulness. Oh, the 
dreadful condition of those who could once, on 
bended knee, say, " Our Father," " My Savior," but 
who have turned their backs upon Him who died for 
them, and " done despite unto the spirit of grace ! " 
If the eye of one such poor wanderer should fall on 
this page, let me entreat you, my brother, my sister, 
to return unto " Father's house, where there is bread 
enough and to spare." 



olio 



CHAPTEE III. 

A MINGLED CUP. 

" Not enjoyment and not sorrow 

Is our destined end or way, 
But to act, that each to-morrow 

Find us farther than to-day. 
Let us, then, be up and doing, 

With a heart for any fate ; 
Still achieving, still pursuing, 

Learn to labor and to wait." 

>T IS, indeed, a mixed cup our Father presents 
His children. It would not be good for us 
to have it filled to the brim with either joy 
or sorrow. So, following the stormy, trying 
days recorded in the previous chapter, came days of 
sunshine and blessing. 

The English tea meetings connected with the 
church were greatly blessed of God. They were 
instituted during the pastorate of the Eev. William 
Edwards, a simple hearted, sweet spirited man of 
God. Never shall I forget his first sermon, or the 
comments I heard upon it and upon him from the 
older members of the church, that bright Sabbath 




42 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

morn in Ely Chapel. The choir were all in a nutter 
of expectation to see the new minister come in. We 
were ready to stand on tip-toe to look over the 
front of the gallery, that we might get the first 
glance. Our curiosity was soon gratified. In walked 
a man of medium size, about sixty years old, with a 
sweet smile and almost childlike simplicity of 
expression. After bowing in silent prayer, he rose, 
and, casting a glance around him which seemed to 
take in all his surroundings, appeared to feel per- 
fectly at home. All feeling of novelty or strange- 
ness vanished — with me, at least — as, with a pleas- 
ant voice, he announced his text : ''Therefore with 
joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salva- 
tion." I had a good draught of life-giving water 
that morning. At the close of the services whis- 
pered comments flew about like leaves in the 
autumn wind. " Why did they send a man like him 
to Ely Circuit?" u Oh, he is a good enough man, 
but there is no stir to him," etc. Then one said : 
u At the end of three years you will sing a different 
song. The more people know him. the more they 
love him, so I hear." The latter remark proved a 
true prophesy. He was not what is called smart, 
but he was good ; and an ounce of goodness is worth 
a pound of smartness any day in God's work. Well, 



A MINGLED CUP. 43 

he labored, he prayed, he conquered prejudice, and 
at the end of three years all loved him. 

Many were converted at these tea meetings, 
among them my eldest and also my youngest 
brother. Never can I forget my eldest brother, 
Charles, as the peace of God entered his soul. There 
he stood in his manly strength, six feet tall — for he 
was like Saul, a head and shoulders above the rest 
of the people — singing as none but a soul newly 
born by the Spirit of God can sing: "I'll praise 
my Maker while I've breath." " Oh ! that grand old 
hymn can never lose its sweetness to me. Oh ! that 
young Christians in these days would commit to 
memory the grand hymns of early days, many of 
them so full of sound theology and Christian doc- 
trine. The hymnology of the early church and the 
grand cadences of the music to which much of it 
was wedded, are being forgotten in these days of 
church " razzle dazzle," when it seems sometimes as 
if the church and the world were tr3 T ing to dance a 
jig together, under the plea that if the church comes 
down to the world she will lift the world up to 
Christ. This will never, never be. God's command 
to the church is not, " Come ye down to the world," 
but " Come ye out from the world," and only as the 
church of God does this and keeps her " garments 



44 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

unspotted from the world " will she be used of God 
in winning souls to Christ. 

The occasion of one of these tea meetings I shall 
never, never forget. It was the 12th of March, 1841, 
a most lovely day. The sun was bright, the farmers 
were plowing in the fields, and I was assisting in 
preparations for a tea meeting in the chapel, and 
asking God, as I ran back and forth, to bless the 
meeting to some precious soul. Dear mother said 
to me : " I fear, my child, you are making too great 
preparations for this tea meeting, and that you will 
be disappointed." 

As the time drew near, I ran home exclaiming : 
" 0, mother! I can see such a flock of people com- 
ing on the Ely road ! " Mother turned to me a love- 
lit face and tearful eyes, saying, u My child, you 
have more faith than your mother.'' 

I took the articles that I needed, and said, "What 
time will you come, mother ? " Her reply was the 
last I ever heard from her lips. 

The meeting went on. My father was there. 
After a little, as the speaking had begun (for the 
meeting was conducted as a love feast, at which 
refreshments were passed around) I heard a 
whispering behind me, and caught a word or two 
which led me to think something unusual had hap- 



A MINGLED CUP. 45 

pened. Soon I was told that my mother had fallen 
on her way to the meeting. 

My elder brother was the one to find her, as he 
was late at meeting. Meeting with an obstruction 
in the way, he stooped and found it was his own 
dear mother. He went to her at once. She could 
not speak. She was carried home, and in about an 
hour breathed her last. Her Bible lay open upon 
the table, and the prints of her elbows on the bed 
where she had knelt to pray before starting for the 
meeting, were plainly visible. We learned also that 
on her first starting out she had met an old lady who 
was on her way to buy some beer, and after a kind 
salutation had striven to impress on the old lady the 
necessity of a preparation for death, as it might be 
at hand. 

Dear mother, she had battled many a storm. 
Often had she gathered her children around her and 
told us of God's dealings with her. 

Once, on her father's return from some business 
trip he was informed by some one that his daughter 
had harbored and entertained some of the despised 
Methodists, and given them help from her scanty 
meals, at which he became so enraged that he got a 
rope with which to hang her. But on his return 
with the rope, he was as one withstood by an angel, 
and was heard saying to himself: "What! what! 



46 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

hang your own daughter ? No ! no ! never ! " and 
rushing to his daughter he fell on his knees beside 
her. begging her forgiveness. 

Many such tales had we heard her relate, and 
now the peaceful end to a life of conflict and victory 
had come. What a night of anguish was that to my 
poor soul ! While my dear eldest brother, who knew 
well the toils, the sorrows, the hardships of her life, 
was walking the house, praising God that for her 
life's conflicts all were ended, that she had left her 
earthly cross for a heavenly crown, I, the poor 
motherless daughter, was unconscious most of the 
night, one fainting fit rapidly following another. 
My youngest br®ther was standing by the bed weep- 
ing as if his heart would break, and Robert was, to 
outward appearance, almost unmoved. 

I pass over the trying scenes of her funeral and 
burial. I find written on the back of my quarterly 
ticket for June, 1841, the following record : " This 
quarter 1 have known what sore bereavement is, for 
I have now no kind mother to advise me, no mother 
to comfort me when persecuted and tried. Surely 
this has been a bitter cup, but it was prepared and 
mingled by my heavenly Father's skill ; and shall I 
repine? Lord help me not to. I know it is the 
Lord." 

For the next four years I was my father's house- 



A MINGLED CUP. 47 

keeper. My youngest brother was my companion 
and comforter. When trials and persecutions came 
to me I had no living mother into whose ears I could 
pour my sorrows, but I could commit all my griefs 
to my Father in heaven. 

One of these trials was the departure of some of 
the young people of my class from the path of duty 
and from God. The persecution and ridicule of the 
world were too strong for them, and again I had 
cause for sighing and tears before the Lord. 

My dear, fun loving, mirth-provoking brother 
Jabez, with his large, dark eyes, which would one 
moment dance for joy, and the next overflow with 
tears of ready sympathy, I seem to see him now ; 
how much he was to me in those four years follow- 
ing my mother's death. His musical talent made 
him a charming companion, and we spent many 
hours of rare satisfaction at the piano, singing the 
songs dear to both our hearts. 

But a change was coming. We began to suspect 
the nature of the errands which took our father so 
often from his home, and soon I was informed that 
a new housekeeper was to take my place. This was 
the more trying to me, as I was told not to reveal it 
to my brothers until the ceremony was performed 
which would give my father the right to install a 
new housekeeper in my stead. I shall never forget 



48 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

one sorrowful night, when, driving home with this 
secret in my heart, a distance of three miles, I was 
so sorely beset by my sorrow and the presence of 
the tempter that I became wholly oblivious to my 
surroundings ; my bonnet fell from my head, my 
shawl from my shoulders, and the reins from my 
hands ; and when the faithful horse, who knew full 
well the way, stopped at the door, and my brother 
came out to receive me, he was inexpressibly 
shocked, and exclaiming : " Mary, Mary, what is the 
trouble ? " took me in his strong arms and bore me 
into the house and to my own room. There with no 
eye but that of God upon us, I told him my secret, 
and we pledged to stand by each other. What a 
dark night that was to us both. Much that was sad 
came into our lives in the next few months, and 
often did we question if our dear mother in heaven 
was cognizant of what we were passing through. 

In a few months after my father's second mar- 
riage, I went away from home for rest and change. 
I had been gone but a few days when a messenger 
came to inform me of the sickness of my dear 
brother Jabez. I reached home Sabbath evening to 
hear him calling my name in wild delirium. Death 
was not far off, but he was ready for the summons, 
and his victory was complete. One day during his 
illness he said he wanted to see the two Dinahs, 



A MINGLED CUP. 49 

two friends of mine, one of whom was deformed 
and the other nearly blind. His natural pride had 
revolted against seeing his sister Mary walk on the 
street with these companions, and he had often 
remonstrated with her for so doing. Now he wished 
to ask their forgiveness. What a scene was that! 
We wept and rejoiced together. After this he sang, 
oh ! so sweetly and clearly, " When I pass the verge 
of Jordan." We who heard that triumphal song 
could not doubt his victory. His hard fought battle 
with death lasted for long hours, and his agony was 
so great that I was sent from the room. He died 
on the 10th of March, just four years and two days 
after the death of our dear mother. He went 
triumphant to glory. Glory to God ! 

Now commenced new trials, for God saw I 
needed to be refined by suffering. Through circum- 
stances too painful to be narrated here, I was led to 
leave my fathers house in April, 1845. In a few 
months I left my native place for the City of Ely. 
God alone knows the trials and temptations that 
beset me, or my short-comings, murmurings, and 
even hard thoughts of Him who had all my life long 
been so good to me. I praise His name that these 
hours were not unmingled with sweet and precious 
seasons of Christian fellowship at prayer and class 
meetings. For a little less than two years I remained 



50 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

in Ely. The kindness of three families, the Fishers, 
Toppings, and Guiscards, will never be erased from 
my memory. God has ever raised up friends for His 
dear children since the days of Joseph. " He knows 
our frame, and remembers that we are dust." Praise 
His dear name. 



B%9) 




William Few. 




CHAPTEK IV. 

SUNSHINE AND SHADOWS. 

11 He sendeth sun, He sendeth shower; 
Alike they're needful for the flower; 
And smiles and tears alike are sent 
To give the soul fit nourishment. 

>N THE last week of 1856, I became the wife 
of William Few, one who had, with other 
young people, been a member of my class • 
for I was appointed class-leader at the age 
of eighteen. What a change from city life to farm 
life — three miles from any village and two miles 
from chapel ; but my love for God's house overcame 
the distance, and, with my lantern in hand, I walked, 
and talked with God as I went, sometimes singing, 
to prayer or class-meeting. I often reached home 
before I thought I was near, so filled was I with the 
sweet company of my best and truest Friend. Had 
it not been for this, I could not have endured the 
severe trials that came to me in the early years of 
my married life. In about three years, we removed 
from the " Quaker Farm," Cambridgeshire, to a large 



52 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

farm in Norfolk, where our business was to raise 
cattle and grain. There we began life with as bright 
prospects as young people could wish ; but soon the 
fascinations of hunting and wine parties drew my 
husband away from his business, and left me with 
the care of the farm on my hands. In those hours 
of care and trial, six miles from my home church, 
sad, indeed, would have been my lot had I not had a 
God who knows the sorrows of his children, and 
who hears and answers prayer. Just across the 
Brandon River was a little primitive Methodist 
chapel ; and as the earnest songs of praise and 
shouts of victory were wafted to me, my heart 
warmed to these so-called Ranters, and soon friend- 
ships were formed, the blessing of which remains 
w T ith me to this day. Soon I was appointed class- 
leader, and cast in my lot with this little church, 
being earnestly solicited to preach for them. This 
solicitation I declined, as I did not, at that time, 
believe in woman's preaching. And yet, Catharine 
Soles, an unlearned Irish woman, could sing, pray, 
and preach under the inspiration of the Spirit, 
though she could not read a word. Well do I 
remember once after criticising their noise and 
shouting, her getting behind me at a social meeting, 
clapping her hands over my head, and singing at the 
top of her voice : 



SUNSHINE AND SHADOWS. 53 

11 Some people are offinded, I know the reason why ; 
But if they felt the glory, they'd shout as well as I. 
I've Jesus Christ within me, He's turned the divil out, 
And now I feel so happy I'm forced to sing and shout. 
Oh ! glory hallelujah," etc. 

From that time I endured what I could not 
enjoy ; but often since then, as memory has carried 
me back, the prayers of those simple, hard working 
people have sounded in my ears and comforted me 
in sore trials. One old man would often pray : " O, 
Thou Blessed Lamb, clear the way for us, clear the 
way for us, for You know all about us." Oh ! the 
sublime faith of some of those dear ones. The 
daughter of the old man who thus prayed was an 
inmate of my home until we left Feltwell Fenn, and 
her father was one of the last to bid us farewell. 
One further incident with regard to Catharine Soles. 
She called one day at a house in our neighborhood, 
and, receiving a kindly salutation from the master, 
she invited him to come to the prayer-meeting. He 
said he would if Catharine would promise to pray 
for him, at the same time promising her sixpence. 
He kept his promise, and went to the meeting. She 
kept her promise, and prayed for him with such 
power that the man trembled from head to foot and 
the perspiration started from every pore. He could 
not escape, as the people were sitting so closely as 



54 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

to blockade the doors, though he would gladly have 
given a sovereign if he could have done so. He 
never offered Catharine Soles any more sixpences to 
pray for him. 

As long as health permitted, I was with this sim- 
ple people every Sabbath morning, and also attended 
the class, which was a mile or more from my home. 
How God did bless us in those days ! I was often 
constrained to say and sing: 

u I'd rather be the least of those 
Who are the Lord's alone, 
Than wear a royal diadem, 
And sit upon a throne." 

The time of Nature's great trial came, and God, 
in His mercy, allowed me to become the mother of 
a living child. No wonder at the depth of mother- 
love, when she has gone down into the " valley of 
the shadow of death " to give the world another life. 
Soon after this, God began to discipline us in taking 
from us one thing after another. Our cattle died, 
our expenses increased, and at last the " Corn Law " 
passed. Thank God for it; for though by it many 
besides ourselves were made poor, it gave bread to 
the hungry, starving people. Then came the terrible 
black frost on the 25th of July, 1851. Never can I 
forget the voice that called to me : " Mary ! get up ! 
We are ruined ! " Poor, wrecked man. I found 



SUNSHINE AND SHADOWS. 55 

him lying as one stricken down, under a haystack, 
and as I looked into his changed face I felt some- 
what like Job, " The Lord gave, and the Lord hath 
taken away, and blessed be the name of the Lord." 
The " Corn Law " had made greater havoc with the 
father-in-law's property than the black frost, and his 
farms had depreciated one-half in value. Through 
pride he kept his grief to himself in great measure. 
He sent for his son ; they conferred together, and in 
a short time I was sent for to take my little one and 
spend a few days over the river at the house of a 
neighbor. What tenderness was shown to both 
mother and child ! It was late when they took me 
home, and I soon retired. Coming down in the 
morning and inquiring why John had not milked, 
the girls looked at each other, and at last the house- 
maid in tears said : " There are no cows to milk, 
mistress. After you were gone over the river yes- 
terday, Master William had all the cattle driven 
away to St. Ives' Market." For a moment my heart 
seemed to stand still. I had worked so hard all the 
first years on the " Quaker Farm " at dressmaking, 
and earned one cow myself. Oh ! the agony of that 
one short hour. What conflicting emotions stirred 
my bosom ; but grace conquered, and I become sub- 
missive. 

The husband and father never returned to that 



56 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

home after driving away the cattle. What could I 
have done had not the strong arm of my loving 
Heavenly Father been underneath me. Dear, faith- 
ful Brother Kuderham came, and one or two others, 
and spent that last night with me. What prayers 
the old man poured out to God over the cradle of 
my sleeping babe ! How he prayed that God would 
spare her to a life of usefulness ! We would work 
at packing the goods till we were tired, and then 
down we would go on our knees and pray ; for the 
goods were to be ready in the morning tor the 
wagons to transport them to my father-in-law's, 
sixteen miles away. 

When all was ready, the last prayer offered, and 
the last farewell said, I turned from the home, the 
birthplace of my child, the scene of so much joy 
and sorrow, with an almost broken heart. Oh, the 
memories that cluster around that home in Norfolk. 
But deeper draughts of sorrow were to be pressed to 
my lips, for on my arrival I found my father-in-law 
had left his family and his home with no word of 
explanation or farewell. Our goods were still on 
the wagons, and I knew not where to house them. 
On the fourth day word came to his family that he 
had gone to America. His wife and eldest daughter 
were almost distracted. The youngest son was away 
at a boarding school, one daughter teaching in a 



SUNSHINE AND SHADOWS. 57 

private family, the eldest daughter deserted by her 
lover on account of the changed circumstances of 
the family, and the eldest son appearing like one 
bereft of his senses; what a household. I tried to 
do what I could to comfort the family, but it seemed 
as if we were almost overwhelmed in one common 
ruin. 

Just then a discerning neighbor came in, and 
pitying my sorrow and forlorn condition, he said : 
u Has not the poor woman suffered enough? She 
shall not stay here." And he took me awa}^. I 
have sometimes thought his kindness saved me 
from insanity, for on the following Monday, as I 
was having my goods unpacked and placed in a 
little unoccupied house belonging to my own father, 
in walked my pale, distracted husband, saying: 
"Mary, put up a shirt and stockings for me; I am 
going to America after my father. Mother thinks 
he is still in Liverpool." Must I acknowledge to 
rebellion in my heart? " Where is John," I ex- 
claimed. " He is the eldest son. He has no wile 
or child to leave." But with a feeling of indigna- 
tion, which I seemed powerless to control, I packed 
my husband's parcel. He started in a few moments, 
but returned, saying : u Can I go and leave you no 
money ? " With tearful eyes he divided the gold he 
had taken for the cattle. So I was left with my 



58 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

unloaded goods, the farming implements, the three 
horses, my riding pony, and my child, a wee baby of 
ten months. No wonder that Nature's nourishment 
for my baby was gone. Stop, reader, and tell me 
what I could have done in this dark hour, had I not 
had a loving Heavenly Father to whom I could fly. 
Oh ! it is in the night that heaven's stars shine 
brightest; and so it is in the night of earth's sorrow 
that the stars of faith and hope burn and shine with 
purest luster, because placed in the heart by God's 
undying love. 

We soon heard that father-in-law had left Liver- 
pool before my husband arrived there, yet by some 
providence of God the son reached America first and 
was standing on the wharf to welcome his father on 
his arrival. 

Very soon the son returned to England for all the 
family, his father remaining in America, and prom- 
ising to secure as large a farm as he could with the 
money at his command, and they would try in the 
new Western world to retrieve their fallen fortunes. 

What had become of the mother and babe left 
behind while these trips across the Atlantic were 
being made ? The horses were sold, only the pony 
being retained by an uncle, and I was getting a com- 
fortable support at my old business, when in walked 



SUNSHINE AND SHADOWS. 59 

my husband, having been absent something over 
two months. 

When he found that his eldest brother had gath- 
ered together all he could from his father's and his 
own ruined estates, and had settled down with his 
mother and sisters, and that all persistently refused 
to cross the water, temptation came in like a flood, 
and weeks of recklessness on the part of my hus- 
band followed. 

Oh ! the bitter sorrow of those days, as my dear 
husband dwelt on the unjust advantage taken over 
him by his brother, and his perilous time in crossing 
the ocean. The vessel, loaded with wheat, had 
sprung a leak, and all hands had to pump day and 
night in order to save their lives. Over and over 
my husband said, U I can never cross the Atlantic 
again." 

The old foe of God and man, always ready to 
drag still lower the soul that is already down, was 
close at hand. Jolly company was sought, games of 
chance indulged in, and the money rapidly de- 
creased. My prayers and tears seemed all unavail- 
ing. I remember one day taking some ready money 
and carrying it to a trusted friend, who put it in the 
old fashioned tall clock for safe keeping. Nothing 
but God's grace kept me from some desperate act 
in those days. 



60 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

In the midst of it all my dear eldest brother 
came in one day pale and sad, saying : " Mary, 
come with me for a walk. It will do us both good." 
That walk will never be forgotten. After giving 
him some refreshment, for his pale face had fright- 
ened me, he opened his heart to me, saying : u You 
know the sorrow that has come into my life, Mary. 
I have decided to go to Australia. I have engaged 
our passage, paid the deposit money, and was 
engaged in makiag a box, when, absorbed in thought, 
I let my ax fail and injured my thumb. The loss of 
blood has made me faint. And now, dear, you aie 
going to America'' (for he knew my husband had 
so decided), wi and I to Australia. But remember 
heaven is just as near one place as the other, and we 
can still pray for each other, and write each other." 
This was a grief, indeed ; but my cup of sorrow was 
not yet full. In about two days I was aroused early 
in the morning by my nephew, the son of that dear 
brother, who brought tidings that his father was 
very ill of lock-jaw, and wanted me. The three 
miles journey was made in agony of soul. Oh! the 
following days ! I can not describe them. His 
precious soul returned to God who gave it, on the 
very morning of our auction preparatory to our 
leaving our native land. He did not go to Australia, 
but by speedy transit to glory. What could I have 



SUNSHINE AND SHADOWS. 61 

done that sad, sad day, had not the " everlasting 
arms " been underneath ? And yet I turned away 
from his grave strangely and wonderfully comforted, 
knowing his sorrows all were ended, and that I 
should meet him again where sin and sorrow never, 
never come. 

"No sorrow yonder, 

All light and song : 
Each day I wonder, 

And say: ' How long 
Shall time me sunder, 
From that bright throng? ' " 

The next few days were crowded with incidents, 
anxieties, and plans, part of the family wishing to 
go with us to join father in America, and part rebel- 
ling against it. After many trying hours it was 
decided that the eldest sister and youngest brother 
should accompany my husband and myself, with our 
little one, and the rest remain behind. 

Now comes the record of one of the two black 
nights that stand out in bold relief in the history of 
my life ; the one on the other side the Atlantic, in 
our native place, Downham. Our goods were 
packed, most of our farewells said, and at seven the 
next morning we were to leave for America. Tear- 
ful, sad and weary, I sought my rest with my dear 
babe in my arms, at my father's home. But where 



62 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

was the father of my babe ? Listen ! I hear voices 
as the door of the tavern just opposite opens. Oh ! 
how acute is the ear of a wife and mother. Hark! 
hush, dear babe ! Yes, yes, I hear the voices of my 
husband and his brother Robert. Oh, my God! 
what is to be the end of all this ? They know we 
begin our sad journey at seven in the morning! 
These farewell drinks ! This cursed ale ! My God, 
my God, help me. Yes, I will go to America if I 
go alone. As well the bottom of the sea, or strange 
America, as this continual sorrow. At last, as I 
could bear it no longer, I rose, dressed, and crossed 
the street to the tavern. As I opened the door, the 
condition of my husband, his brother and their boon 
companions showed me how their vile potations had 
inflamed and poisoned their brains. I said : u Hus- 
band, will you please come home ? Remember we 
start on our long journey at seven in the morning." 
Was it the hand of my kind, loving husband that 
hurled the tankard with its contents at the head of 
his young wife ? Yes, it was, indeed, his hand, but 
it was impelled by the drink devil within, and not 
by his naturally kind, loving heart. I went back to 
my babe and my sympathizing God. Oh ! the strong 
crying of my soul in the agony of that hour, for 
deliverance, for succor; but no husband came. 

Morning at length dawned upon us. Tearfully 



SUNSHINE AND SHADOWS. 63 

and sadly we started for the station two miles away, 
myself and babe, with the brother and sister who 
were to accompany us. At that early hour (Feb., 
1851), a host of neighbors and friends had assembled, 
among them one poor cripple on crutches, to bid us 
farewell, promising that if we failed of friends or 
money in America they would send us money to 
bring us home. But where is the husband and 
father? Not with them. Mingled exclamations of 
indignation and pity are all cut short by the startling 
cry, " Look ! Look ! " When lo ! in the distance, 
like Gilpin of old, was seen a rider, minus hat, 
bridle or saddle, riding at full gallop, his light hair 
streaming in the wind. Just before the train 
steamed in, a neighbor, indignant at my husband's 
course (for it was he whose break-neck ride I have 
just described), reproved him, upon which he was 
instantly felled to the ground by the same hand 
which had hurled the tankard at my head the pre- 
vious night, and impelled, as then, by the drink 
demon. My husband was then taken and put almost 
by main force into the car. I well remember my 
mortification on seeing a minister and his wife the 
occupants of the same compartment, as they looked 
one at another, and then at our tear-stained faces, 
as though taking in the whole situation at a glance, 
both pity and compassion over-spreading their 



64 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

countenances. Little was said for the first hundred 
miles or so. When my husband awakened from his 
stupor, and the memory of the last night's scenes 
dawned upon him, his grief and remorse were, 
indeed, pitiful. No wonder so many destroy their 
own lives, when in such moments as these they 
come to realize their degradation. 

Reaching Liverpool, passage was secured on 
board the old " Manhattan," an emigrant ship, in 
the second cabin, and, by paying extra, I secured a 
state-room in the center of the vessel, which was 
filled with stores and sealed with the government 
seal. This subjected us to discomfort for a night or 
two, as the seal could not be broken till we were out 
ot British waters. I saw the hand of God in this 
later on. From the first our family was marked by 
all on board. Early in the six weeks' voyage, the 
captain asked me if I would not go into the first 
cabin, assist the steward somewhat, and so secure to 
myself additional comforts. I told him, with thanks, 
that my husband and babe needed me, but, perhaps, 
my husband's sister would go. After prayer and 
deliberation, she consented. There was much of 
frivolity, to use no stronger word, among the pas- 
sengers. My actions were criticized and sneered at 
by some, whose profanity and lewdness I had 
firmly, but kindly, rebuked. But God was about to 



SUNSHINE AND SHADOWS. 65 

speak. Ob ! the sublime but terrible sight of a 
storm at sea. The old ship creaked, and groaned, 
and labored, and tossed; the wind blew and howled; 
the captain shouted through his trumpet ; the sails 
cracked; the masts sprung, and the ship pitched 
and tossed fearfully. Then came the command, 
"Close the port holes;" for we could hear water 
rushing to and fro across the deck. Next came the 
order, " Close the hatches." The water began to 
flood the state-rooms in the sides of the vessel. The 
noise below was almost as loud and confusing as the 
noise above ; for cries, groans, tears, and counting 
of beads could be seen and heard in all quarters. 
One man, who had fiddled for the dancers and made 
a great deal of sport for others, was rushing about 
like a mad man, with a blanket thrown around him, 
his fingers in his ears, and crying to God to have 
mercy on him. Now I saw my Father's hand in my 
being placed in that little middle state-room where 
my babe and I could be dry during the storm. What 
a change had come over the people on that ship, 
with the vanishing of the sunshine and the presence 
of the great storm king among us. Those who 
truly trust God in the sunshine, can trust Him in 
the storm. Those who had criticized the u pious 
woman," now came rushing to her state-room as 
though she could save them. Never can I forget the 



66 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

sweet calm that filled my soul. If to the bottom of 
the sea I went, no more would the drink curse afflict 
me, and my babe would be at rest in the arms of 
Jesus, the Good Shepherd. The young brother came, 
and, with quivering lips, said : "Are we really 
going down ? " Bab}^ was fastened into one berth, 
husband lying pale and silent in his, and I standing 
with a hand on each, praying God's will might be 
done. I did not know that two German gentlemen 
who occupied a little room corresponding to ours, 
were listening to my words ; but after the storm was 
over, one of them came to tell me tearfully that my 
prayers comforted and cheered them. Oh ! yes ; 
God's grace can, and does, sustain in storms, both 
on sea and land. 

After this storm, the days came and went till the 
joyful sound, " Land ahead ! " greeted us. Hearts 
palpitated with joy or sorrow, according to the 
anticipations indulged with regard to what was 
before them. We were in earnest expectation of 
seeing father's portly form standing out from the 
rest to welcome us, as we had advertised him, as 
nearly as we could, with regard to our arrival ; but, 
alas ! we were doomed to disappointment. 



CHAPTER Y. 

DARK DAYS. 

" Blind unbelief is sure to err, 

And scan His work in vain ; 
God is His own interpreter, 

And He will make it plain. 
His purposes will ripen fast, 

Unfolding every hour ; 
The bud may have a bitter taste, 

But sweet will be the flower." 

EW, strange experiences were to be ours, 
but with it all our way seemed growing 
darker and darker at every step. Board- 
ing house runners were numerous, each 
declaring his own house to be the best. As we had 
considerable luggage, the customs officers left ours 
for awhile to attend to those who had less to be 
inspected and who wanted to get ashore. While 
waiting, my husband remembered that his father 
had said, at parting : u If I fail to meet you, you 
will find a letter at the postoffice, telling you where 
I am." So he and his brother set off for the post- 
office. After forty years, I can see their faces as 




68 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

they came in sight with the open letter in their 
hands. I said to my husband's sister : " Don't 
fain't or scream ; your father is either dead or has 
gone back to England.'' May I never see the dis- 
tress pictured on another young face that I saw on 
hers. The father had, indeed, returned, and we had 
passed each other somewhere on the wide, trackless 
ocean. The first words of my husband, when he 
was once more on board the vessel, were : " Would 
to God the vessel had sunk before we reached the 
shore." Perhaps few families have felt greater 
agony on reaching America than the four who sat 
on the deck of the old Manhattan that Tuesday 
morning. I felt at that moment that it was I who 
must take the lead, leaning on the arm of my cove- 
nant-keeping God. So, trying to cheer the others 
the best I could, we went ashore. 

My first encounter was with a scoundrel who was 
at the boarding house to which we went, doubtless 
to rob and destroy, though dressed in the garb of a 
minister of the gospel. His bland t; Excuse me, 
madam, but where have I met you before ? " was 
met with such a reply as he deserved, and he beat a 
precipitate retreat. How my mother heart ached to 
see him a few hours later engaged in close conversa- 
tion with an apparently unsophisticated young girl, 
who seemed to have no guardian. How many times 



DARK DAYS. 69 

since then I have wished I had gone directly to her 
and warned her of his true character and intentions. 

Soon I was surprised to see the mate of the ves- 
sel, quite transformed, with his clean shaven face 
and land clothing, approach us. He politely asked 
my husband to take a walk with him, also desiring 
an interview with my husband's sister, to whom the 
next day he offered his heart and hand, having fallen 
in love with her on board the vessel. 

And now must I have one more dark, dark night 
on this side the Atlantic ! O, cruel, accursed drink, 
by what name shall we call thee ? 

Having secured a room with two beds, and taken 
possession of it, my precious baby sick, Robert shak- 
ing with chills and fever, sister weeping softly, hus- 
band gone away somewhere with the mate of the 
vessel, in agony of soul I called on my God; for 
were we not here alone in a strange land ? Father 
had gone and left us, we had but little money, and 
were here in this strange house whose character we 
did not know, up three flights of stairs, and for a lit- 
tle while fear had the right of way. So I barricaded 
the door with the furniture, and sat down to try to 
comfort the sick and weeping ones, and then to call 
mightily upon God for his help and direction. While 
thus engaged, I heard as distinctly as though uttered 
by a human voice audibly, the words, " Go to Bos- 



70 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

ton, go to Boston." Whether Boston was east, west, 
north, or south, I knew not, but felt sure it was the 
voice of God. 

The night wore on, baby was restless, Robert 
moaning, sister tearful, now and then sobbing out, 
" What, O, what shall I do ? I can not be a burden to 
you, oh ! oh ! what shall I, what shall I do ! " 

In the dead of the night I heard steps upon the 
stairs ; thump, thump, thump — what could it be ? 
Some one coming to kill us ■? Who could tell ? 
Hark! hark! on they come. It sounds as if they 
were carrying or dragging a heavy body. 

Oh, how quickly love banishes fear. The thought 
of my poor husband, and that it was he they were 
bringing, led me quickly to remove the furniture 
with which I had barricaded the door, and as the rap 
came at the door, my words as to who was there, 
and what was wanted, rang out clearly and distinctly. 

"Madam, is not this your husband?" I opened 
the door, and at my feet lay a human form, so cov- 
ered with blood and mud that I certainly could not 
recognize my husband. On washing away the blood 
I found a deep cut, which I afterward learned was 
caused by a piece of iron, thrown at him by the man 
who had received pay to conduct him to the house, 
but who, on getting the money into his hands had 
thus cruelly treated one who, being somewhat under 



DARK DAYS. 71 

the influence of liquor, was thus in his power. A 
policeman found him, and as he was able to remem- 
ber the house to which he wanted to be guided, he 
was brought to me in the condition I have just 
described. 

But where was the man who took him from his 
family to indulge in the social glass ? Oh, " the ten- 
der mercies of the wicked are cruel." It was my 
dear husband's social nature that drew him into 
these places of jolly comradeship, more than the 
love of the drink. That first night of horror in 
America, and the last night of bitterness in my 
English home, over both of which brooded the " hor- 
ror of great darkness " for me, can never, never be 
forgotten. 

As the sun rose that March morning, pale and 
exhausted, sad and forlorn, this family group con- 
sidered what to do. " Go to Boston," rang in my 
ears and resounded through my soul, while my hus- 
band kept repeating : " Would to God, the vessel 
had sunk before we reached the shore." Robert said 
but little. Poor boy, never allowed before to clean 
his own boots, now shaken with chills and fever, yet 
saying: "I'll sweep the streets, if I can't get any- 
thing else to do, when I get over these chills." 
Sister would wail out now and then : " I can't be a 
burden to you. Father has left us no money. Oh ! 



72 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

what shall we do?" Well do I remember the strong 
faith that came into my soul at that moment as I 
replied : " I love God ; I have tried to serve Him. 
He will not forsake in this hour of need, and you 
shall share with me to the last crust and the last 
penny. God, in some way, will provide." Then I 
told them of my impression to go to Boston, and 
learning that a steamer left New York for Boston 
every afternoon, arriving there in the morning, we 
prepared to leave. 

Soon the mate of the vessel made his appearance 
again to press his suit for our sister's hand. I could 
not consent, for well did I know she cared nothing 
for him, and he might already have a wife for aught 
we knew. He informed us of the hour of the 
steamer's leaving for Boston. We made ready, took 
our baggage, and reached the pier just in season to 
see the steamer leave, but not in time to board her. 
He had given us the wrong hour, hoping thus to 
gain time for himself, and so gain his end. 

Now came " the hour and the power of dark- 
ness," that seldom comes more than once in a life- 
time. There we stood, a spectacle to men, angels, 
and devils; and for a moment Satan triumphed. 
"Now," said he, " what do you think of answer to 
prayer? If it had been God's voice saying, 'Go to 
Boston,' would you be left standing here ? Bah ! it 



DARK DAYS. 73 

was only imagination. What is the use? You have 
had an unequal struggle for years. You have run 
counter to God's will, and this is the penalty. Jump 
into the blue water and end it all. The babe will 
be safe." Ah ! the old, wily devil outwitted him- 
self then, for though that blue, still water seemed 
to attract me to its quiet depths like a great magnet 
a moment before, the safety of my child in the 
other world brought back- to my mind my own baby 
days, and my own dear, loving mother. She was 
safe in the heavenly land. If I took my own life I 
could not meet her. In an instant I heard the tones 
of her voice, and felt the pressure of her hand on 
my head, as kneeling by her bedside she pleaded : 
" Oh, God ! bless and guide my child, my only 
daughter, and wherever in Thy providence she may 
go, guide and keep her." 

It was enough. The power of Satan was broken. 
With streaming eyes I cried : "Nay; though Thou 
stay me, yet will I trust in Thee." In a moment a 
hand was laid on my shoulder ; I saw a fine looking 
man standing looking at me with tears of com- 
passion in his eyes. " Don't feel so badly, madame," 
he said, " another steamer will leave to-morrow 
night. In the meantime come with me. I keep a 
boarding-house near by. and I promise you I will 
not overcharge you." I have often thought since 



74 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

then that he suspected our funds were low, and said 
that to reassure me. On reaching his house I asked 
for a double-bedded room, as it seemed as if we 
should feel safer together. As soon as the room 
was ready I placed my babe in my sister's arms, 
and retired to it at once. There, on bended knee, I 
sought to know the will of my Heavenly Father. I 
told the Lord He knew how I had been tempted, 
and pleaded with Him to make it plain to me, and 
again it came, clearly, distinctly : " Go to Boston. 
Go to Boston." " Yes, Lord," I said, U I will, I will." 
I was sure now that it was God's plan. Where 
Boston was, or why I was to go, I knew not; but 
there was no more doubt. The next day in New 
York was spent in trying to find suitable employ- 
ment for the brother and sister, but nothing could 
be found. The mate of the vessel still followed us 
about, and the dear sister was sorely tempted to 
sacrifice herself that she might not add to my 
already heavy burden of a half demented husband, 
sick brother, and baby girl. She did not realize 
that underneath were "the everlasting arms." 

We were at the wharf in season to take the 
steamer, that afternoon, but, to my chagrin, the 
mate was there before us, intoxicated, persistent. 
At last I procured the services of a policeman, who 
took him away. State-room secured and baggage 



DARK DAYS. 75 

looked after, I went on deck, where, to my great 
surprise, I met Mr. Taylor and Mr. Appleby, who 
had come over on the same ship with us, and who 
had been like brothers to me on that sad, trying 
voyage, the latter of whom presented me the motto 
of which I spoke in the opening of this volume. 
Tears of joy flowed down my face as I said : " Yes, 
I see now why God ordered or permitted the steamer 
to go without us yesterday." Oh ! how grateful was 
I for the sympathy and help of these strong, kind 
men, and how they tried to cheer my poor husband 
and sister in their despair. 

Boston was reached at 5 a. m. We went at once 
to a boarding-house. In a few hours, the proprietor, 
seeing we had considerable baggage, and, perhaps, 
thinking we had considerable means, solicited me to 
take charge of his establishment, as his wife was ill. 
I asked myself: u Is this what I came to Boston 
for? 1 ' Common sense came to my aid, or, perhaps, 
I should say, enlightened judgment, for we have the 
promise, "The meek will He guide in judgment, 
and the meek will He teach His way ; " and I saw 
at once that, with no knowledge of the ways of the 
country, or of its currency, that was not the thing 
for me to do. Speaking to Mr. Appleby — for the 
two gentlemen had gone with us to our lodging 
place — I said: U I can, after securing a home, do 



76 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

millinery work and dress-making, though it is years 
since I did that work." I asked my husband to go 
with me to look for rooms, but all the reply I could 
get from him was: "Why didn't the vessel sink? 
I wish some one would blow my brains out, and put 
an end to this." At last Mr. Appleby said : " I will 
go with you, madam ; it is not fitting you should go 
alone." And, turning to his companion, he said : 
" Taylor, do try to rouse Mr. Few to some sense of 
his manhood ; he must not give wslj like this." 

We started out, and, in a few moments, heard 
quick steps behind us. They passed us. It was my 
husband and Mr. Taylor. Soon my companion said : 
" Stop, Mrs. F.; there is a news-stand. I will get a 
paper, and, perhaps, in the " wants " I can find 
something for some of us to do." He came back 
across the street, with his finger resting on a certain 
paragraph, and said : " Read that." I did so, and 
from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet 
I felt — I knew it was for that I had come to Bos- 
ton. I said at once : u Mr. A., I shall not look for 
rooms here. That place is for me ; I am sure of it." 
He looked in my face, saying: " You are a strange 
woman." I said: "It refers to No. 27 State 
street." We soon found the place. I stepped 
in, paper in hand, and asked: "Sir, do you know 
anything about this place?" showing him the adver- 



DARK DAYS. 77 

tisement. He replied that he had inserted it for his 
brother, who wanted a lady to take charge of a 
dress-making and millinery establishment in a beau- 
tiful town about fifty miles from Boston. " Well, 
sir," said I, " I have come all the way from England 
to fill that place." He looked astonished, and asked 
me what references I could give him. I told him I 
had none, as I did not think, when I left home, I 
should need any. Then, in a few words, I told him 
my great disappointment in not meeting our father, 
etc., assuring him I could give him all the references 
he would wish as soon as I could get them on a 
return steamer from England. Tears filled his eyes 
as he said : u If my brother could look into your 
honest face as I do, I am sure he would ask for no 
other reference." That kindly sympathy and confi- 
dence just broke me down. I wept and wept, and 
so did he, and the man who was with me. What a 
shower that was ! He wrote at once to his brother, 
and so did I. This was on Thursday morn. He said 
I would get a reply by Saturday noon. Returning 
to the children and telling them all, we wept 
together tears of joy and gratitude to God. 

How long Friday seemed ; and when Saturday 
came and brought no letter, I went again to the 
broker's office, and, after conferring with him, 
decided to go and see the brother myself. So, leav- 



78 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

ng brother and sister behind, and taking husband 
and baby, we hurriedly set off, just in season to hear 
the bell ring, the cry, "All aboard," and to get on 
board the train which was to bear us off to this new 
home in America, which we reached at 3:50 p. m., 
the 1st day of April, 1851. The last three miles 
were made in a stage-coach, which cut its way 
through the ice, snow, and mud, for the traveling- 
was very bad. Never can I forget the look of dis- 
tress and disgust on my dear husband's face as he 
exclaimed: u For God's sake, where are we going? 
To the North Pole ? God never intended this coun- 
try for white people. It is only fit for Indians and 
wild beasts." Dear William, he had not laid off his 
English glasses, nor did he till the war broke out. 

In the coach was the daughter of the village 
hotel-keeper, and we went with her to the hotel on 
our arrival. A strange gentleman, on leaving the 
coach, shook hands with baby, leaving in her tiny 
hand a piece of silver, large as she could hold. 
Tears of gratitude fill my eyes as I write it. God 
has been so good to me all the way along. Every- 
thing was new and strange to us. Even the food on 
the tea-table seemed such a combination of the 
light and the substantial as to provoke a smile from 
me in the midst of all our perplexity and sadness. 
I have often been glad that God gave me such a 



DARK DAYS. 79 

keen appreciation of the ludicrous, for, it seems to 
me, that sometimes it has kept my head above water 
when otherwise I should have gone under with dis- 
couragement and trial. 

Supper over, I inquired for Mr. E. The daughter 
said : " Yes, madam, I will go with you ; but you 
will need rubbers." " Kubbers " — what were they ? 
She explained. " I have neither clogs nor pattens 
with me," I replied. I knew nothing of " rubbers," 
neither did she of " clogs and pattens." I was soon 
introduced to a pair of rubbers, and we went 
together to the store. Mr. E. was in the upper store. 
Hearing a strange voice, he said : " That must be 
the English lady my wife was going to Boston to see 
next Monday." He came down, greeted me, and 
took me to his home. His wife, mistaking me for 
her cousin, gave me a warm greeting, which she was 
not disposed to withdraw when she found her mis- 
take. In a short time, I was engaged for the situa- 
tion, and was invited to inspect a large house which 
Mr. E. had just purchased, and choose whichever 
part I preferred for my home. Was ever such kind- 
ness shown a stranger in a strange land before? 
Then we were invited to leave the hotel and spend 
the Sabbath with them. 

Never shall I forget that first Sabbath in America, 
as Mr. E. led me to his pew in the Congregational 



80 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

Church. The commingling of gratitude and wonder 
at the strangeness, and my sense of the ridiculous, 
lor it seemed to me ridiculous to see a fiddle, or 
violin, which I had always associated with the ball- 
room, used in a church, for Divine worship. I 
remember neither text nor sermon. My eyes over- 
flowed as I thought of " all the way the Lord, my 
God, had led " me in the past few months. It 
seemed as if I could not refrain from an outburst of 
thanksgiving — a genuine Methodist, "Glory to 
God ! " I well remember a young man who sat near 
us, whose tear-filled eye looked sympathizingly at 
me as I wept for joy ; and also a smile, seemingly of 
ridicule, or amusement, possibly, on the face of a 
lady also near. Text and sermon were long ago for- 
gotten ; but the smile and the tear still live in my 
memory. 

How kind Mr. E.'s family were to us in those 
early days in a strange land. We also experienced 
unusual kindness from the traders of whom we pur- 
chased the needed articles for housekeeping. How 
much of this was due to the fact that a young 
woman who came into my room one day, without 
rapping, found me with my gold lying on the table, 
and spoke of it to others, who might have imagined 
we were people of some means, and so these traders, 
perhaps, were influenced by that, I am unable to 



DARK DAYS. 81 

say. Sure I am, however, that the E.'s were influ- 
enced only by motives of the purest kindness. 

My husband went to Boston the following 
Wednesday, bringing with him on his return, brother 
and sister, and the remainder of our luggage. When 
they arrived I had the home all ready to receive 
them; and from that day to this, now forty-one 
years, I have never been without a home in dear old 
Amherst, New Hampshire, save three years spent 
in Nashua, although the Amherst home was. during 
that time, still in our hands. 

" Trials must and will befall ; 

But with trusting eye to see 
Love inscribed upon them all — 

This is happiness to me." 

Surely God does not forget the seed of the 
righteous. But the refining process must go on. 
The baby drooped day by day; the brother still 
suffered from chills and fever; the sister broke 
down under the added strain which had come upon 
her nerves during the days of our separation. Dear 
girl ! in her moments of suspense she seemed to for- 
get all our love for her, and that nearly all our lug- 
gage was with her. She thought only that we had 
fallen into evil hands in this dreadful, strange 
America, and that they would never, never see us 
again. Now, in this nice home, with a prospect of 



82 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

permanent employment for one, at least, sufficient 
to u keep the wolf from the door," she utterly broke 
down, and her strength all seemed to give way. Oh ! 
how the weary watching of those days of sickness 
was cheered and brightened by the kind sympathy 
and helpfulness of these new friends. 

" Let my right hand forget her cunning," if I for- 
get these acts of loving sympathy and helpfulness. 
One night stands out from all the rest. My babe 
was very, very ill. The doctor, who knew how worn 
out I was, said to a kind neighbor who was assisting 
me : " Get that English woman to bed if you can. 
The child can't live till midnight." They took me 
to my room, and there on bended knee I wrestled 
with God for the life of my child. Oh ! the strong 
pleadings of a mother's heart. About twelve o'clock 
I was called, the messenger saying : " The child has 
opened her eyes and is calling for mamma." God 
spared the life of all three. The sister returned to 
England in about four years, and in a few years she 
was not, " for God took " her. Soon I secured a 
situation for the brother. My husband found 
employment, and I took up a business that I had 
laid down for years. 

I shall never forget the kindness of the E. family 
from the day we first met until now. Our enterprise 
was successful in the millinery department. Other 



DARK DAYS. 83 

departments were added, changes came, and in a 
little while the millinery department was transferred 
to me. God blessed and prospered me in it all. 
Praise His name. 



®## 



CHAPTER VI. 

A NEW CHUKCH HOME. 

"Ah, Lord Jesus ! look on me, 

Wandering in this exile land. 
I look up, my Lord, to Thee, 

Unto Thee stretch out my hand ; 
Daily draw my soul more near, 

Through the pain, the fight, the fear." 

" Help me willingly to serve 

As Thy minister each day ; 
Never falter, never swerve ; 

Thou the glory of my way. 
If sin burdened, yet sin blest — 

Thou my shelter, shade and rest." 

~2 HAD been surprised to see no little children 
in the Baptist or Congregationalist churches. 
My own little one, in our English home, had 
been taken to meeting before I was strong 
enough to go myself. As no one took little children 
into the church at Amherst, I sat with my little one 
in the vestibule ; and O ! how I longed for the 
usages of the dear mother church in England. I 
found there was a small, unused, brick meeting- 




A NEW CHURCH HOME. 85 

house which belonged to the Methodists, and there 
were a few of that denomination scattered about ; 
and how I wished that house could be opened. I 
have been there many a time in the twilight, and, 
leaning my elbows on the window-sill and my head 
on my hands, have wept over its desolation. Often 
was the window-sill wet with my tears. I did not 
wonder the children of Israel hung their harps on 
the willows and wept when they remembered Zion. 
Soon I was moved to set about renovating the little 
chapel, and God wonderfully gave me favor in the 
eyes of the people, and, at length, the doors were 
again opened. I sent to the Biblical Institute at 
Concord for a minister, and Rev. 0. A. Merrill, now 
of the New England Conference, came, and God 
blessed his labors in the conversion of souls. I 
wanted a real English tea meeting, but as some of 
the brethren did not quite understand what it was, 
they thought it would be better to hold it in a 
private house. Would to God our people, Methodists 
as well as others, were as careful with regard to the 
use of their churches to-day. Deacon David opened 
his parlors to us, and a young man, now Dr. Chip- 
man of the New York Conference, was with us. 
God blessed that meeting. The Deacon said : " I 
see now that the remark I have often heard quoted 
is true : ' Methodism is religion in earnest.' " What 



86 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

gratitude filled my soul as, from one source or 
another, there came into my hands nearly money 
enough to pay the expenses of repairing and open- 
ing the house. A young man, who came to hear 
Dr. Chapman preach the following Sabbath (as Dr. 
Chapman was exchanging pulpits with Brother Mer- 
rill), was so impressed that he came again in the 
evening. That night he took a stand for Christ and 
was converted. It was the impression of the writer 
that God had called that young man to preach the 
gospel, and in a few weeks I had to write and tell 
him my impression. Before the letter reached him, 
he had decided to leave the work in which he was 
engaged, feeling like one of old : " Woe is me if I 
preach not the gospel." God made of him a "work- 
man that needed not to be ashamed," and for six 
years he preached a full and free salvation, and died 
at his post at Keene, N. H. Many who came to the 
Savior at that time have passed over the river. 

God's presence often filled the little brick church, 
and souls were saved year by year. The Rev. I. 
Simmons followed Brother Merrill. A more self- 
sacrificing young man it would be hard to find. 
Converted in New Hampshire, having wandered 
into a prayer-meeting led by the Rev. S. Holman 
(who is still on the walls of Zion, and has, within 
the last year or two, built a new church in Lowell, 



A NEW CHURCH HOME. 87 

Mass.), he knew what he was saved from and what 
he was saved for. God and he alone knew fully of 
his struggles for an education. Though once termed 
a " novice " by a D. D., he now carries the D. D. 
himself, and has filled important places in the N. Y. 
E. Conference. Then followed the Kev. S. Ham- 
mond, just called home to glory, and then the Rev. 
J. Pilkington. 

About that time my health failed somewhat 
through over-application to my business and church 
work. Rest must be taken, and so I took a trip to 
Jamestown to visit my mother's old friends and take 
in Niagara. Oh ! how the sublime sight of Niagara 
affected me. Tears flowed, and a solemn awe rested 
upon my spirit as I saw this wonderful revelation of 
power, and realized that my Father was back of 
it all. 

Circumstances, both ludicrous and pathetic, 
awaited me in my interviews with these old friends 
in Jamestown and vicinity. School-mates were there 
whom I had not seen for more than twenty years. 
On inquiring of my host at Jamestown if one John 
Wilson lived in the vicinity, he replied: "Yes, 
three John Wilsons ; which do you want ? " " My 
friend is an Englishman," I replied. "' They are all 
English," quoth mine host. " My John Wilson has a 
very large family," was my rejoinder. " They all 



88 MARY W. R RICHARDSON. 

have large families,' 1 said he. a The one I wish to 
find is a farmer," said I. u They are all farmers," 
quoth he. In desperation I said : " Get me a team, 
and I will find the one I want." The team was 
brought — an old, mud-bespattered stage-coach which 
looked as if it might have been as old as Noah's ark 
(but I forget; they had no such vehicles in that 
day), and a pair of horses that might, from their 
appearance, have been close lineal descendants of 
the one Ichabod Crane bestrode. " Which John 
Wilson, madam ? " " The first one we come to," I 
replied. And he proved to be the very man I 
sought. He took me, with his nice span of horses, 
some thirty miles, or more, to see some of my 
school-mates who had been in this country many 
years. On reaching the farm, we asked a young 
man if they could put us up for the night. He 
thought they could not, His father came to the 
door and informed us everything was in disorder, 
as they were making repairs in the house. I said to 
him : t; I have seen the time you would give me a 
place on your knee, and sing, ' Hie to the market 
and gee to the fair.' " In a moment, a voice at the 
open window said : ; ' That is Mary Walsham's 
voice." Dear old man, it was almost death to him. 
The name brought up such a host of memories of 
the fatherland that he wept, he coughed, he stran- 



A NEW CHURCH HOME. 89 

gled, and at last fell to the ground, and it was some 
time before he could speak intelligibly. We found a 
place for the night under that roof, and, with some 
one to guide us, we started to find other friends at 
Cain's Corner. With these dear friends we bowed 
in prayer, while tears filled our eyes and gratitude 
our hearts. They may all be on the other side 
waiting me at this writing. I know not; I have not 
seen them for many long years. 

Refreshed and strengthened, I returned home, 
having made arrangements with a sister of Brother 
Pilkington to spend a year with me. That was a 
happy year. What blessed seasons we had in 
prayer, song, and labor for Christ. One of our num- 
ber was a young woman, whose conversion at a 
camp-meeting at Eastham before my trip, I must 
here relate. At that camp-meeting I met Father 
Taylor, Father Mason, city missionary from Boston, 
Mother Monroe, and Doctor and Mrs. Palmer, of 
New York. By the kindness of dear Mrs. Furness, 
of the old Bromfield Street Church, Boston, I was 
invited to their tent. Praying one day, I had great 
enlargement of soul, and sighs and weeping were 
heard throughout the tent, under the power of the 
Holy Spirit. After we rose from our knees, Sister 
Palmer said to me : " My sister, the Lord gives you 
power in prayer. You have no wish to neutralize 



90 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

that power, have you ? " I answered : "No; God 
forbid." Then she said: "Hearts were moved as 
you prayed ; but when they rose and saw your rings, 
and ear-ornaments, and watch-chain, they were stag- 
gered. It was a revalation to me. My ears were 
pierced as a child to help my eyes; my ring was 
given me as a token of my legal marriage; my 
watch, the gift of my father. The ear-ornaments I 
removed forever; my wedding-ring and watch I still 
wear, although I thought it right to lay them aside 
at that meeting. I had great yearnings of soul after 
a young girl, who met me with a rebuff once or 
twice when I spoke to her of her soul. I at length 
told her I would pray for her that night, and see her 
in the morning, if she would allow me. After a 
night of prayer, Mother Monroe said she would go 
with me. As we approached the tent, the young 
girl made some laughing comment to her young 
companions. I saluted her kindly, lovingly. She 
repelled me, till I said: "Just one question, dear ; 
have you a mother? " Her chin quivered, her eyes 
filled, and she replied : " I once had." u Then one 
question more," said I ; "was she a praying mother?" 
She gave a pitiful cry and fell instantly to the 
ground. It was I who trembled now. I was, in 
deed, frightened. Dear Mother Monroe said : " My 
child, she is struck under conviction." Indeed, she 



A NEW CHURCH HOME. 91 

was; and if ever sanctification followed close on 
justification, it did in this case. She lay motionless 
for hours, and told me afterward that in that time 
one thing after another presented itself to her to be 
given up for Christ or to be done with Him, until 
she could say : " Yes, Lord, all, all." Then she arose, 
shouting : " Glory ! Glory ! " till the old camp- 
ground rang again and again. She was carried away 
from the stand with her face shining as Moses's face 
shone when he came down from the " holy mount." 
She was with us when Brother Pilkmgton was our 
pastor, and our little home prayer-meetings were, 
indeed, Bethels to our souls. One night we prayed 
on and on till our light went out, all unconsciously 
to us until we rose; but the light of God burned 
brightly in our souls. 

Again my health gave way, under the accumu- 
lating cares and pressure of business, and as Rev. 
Thomas Wilson, who had often visited us, was going 
home, he kindly consented to care for me and my 
child in crossing the Atlantic. I wanted to see my 
own and my husband's father once more, and was 
assured that I needed the voyage to prolong my life. 



CHAPTER VII. 

TRIP TO ENGLAND. 

"We are out on the ocean, sailing, 

Homeward bound we swiftly glide ; 
We are out on the ocean, sailing, 

To a home beyond the tide. 
All the storms will soon be over; 

Then we'll anchor in the harbor; 
We are out on the ocean, sailing, 

To a home beyond the tide." 

>N THE early part of July, 1857, on board the 
Niagara, in Boston harbor, we met the re- 
nowned John B. Gough, and his family. 
Beaching Halifax, we took on board several 
ministers bound for the British Methodist Confer- 
ence to be held in Liverpool. 

How tender was my Heavenly Father's care for 
me. Mr. Wilson and a Scotch gentleman carried 
me on deck, when unable to walk. The sea was as 
calm as possible. " 

One night I had an impression for which I could 
not account, that we were nearing some danger. In 
an instant the words — 




A TRIP TO ENGLAND. 93 

"Not a single shaft can hit, 
Till the loving God sees fit," 

came to my mind, and I slept peacefully the remain- 
der of the night. 

The next day when asked if I was not frightened. 
I replied : " No ; why should I be ? " " Why ! did 
you not know how near we came to having a collis- 
ion last night ? There was a dreadful commotion on 
board," was the reply. I had known nothing about 
it. My Father had let a sweet sleep hide it all from 
me. 

On the Sabbath we had a good sermon from one 
of the ministers, but how I longed for a good prayer 
meeting. 

One of the passengers kept aloof from us all, and 
much speculation was indulged in Avith regard to his 
nationality ; but when we reached the British Chan- 
nel, and sang " God Save the Queen,*' his hat came 
off in a twinkling, and his nationality was revealed. 

We reached land Sabbath morning, and were 
much chagrined that it took the custom house offi- 
cers so long to inspect J. B. Gough's luggage that 
we could not get ashore in season to hear Bishop 
Simpson's sermon. I was the more disappointed as 
I had heard neither him nor Doctor Durbin, then 
considered prominent pulpit orators among Ameri- 
can Methodists. 



94 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

Taking the train for Manchester, where the 
World's Fair was to be held, we were introduced 
into the room prepared for the Queen. Never shall 
I forget my emotions as I looked upon all that mag- 
nificence, and thought that my Savior was prepar- 
ing, not a room, but a mansion for me, and for the 
poorest and humblest of His faithful followers. The 
glad tears flowed as I stood there, and got a glimpse T 
by faith, of my glorious inheritance. That faith, 
praise God, has increased with increasing years. 

Soon we reached the home of Mr. Wilson, whose 
father had met us in Liverpool. How sweet the 
meeting of those so closely bound together by ties 
of kindred and affection; a sort of foretaste of the 
blessed reunions that await God's children in the 
Father's house above. After tarrying a little time 
visiting in Halifax, and attending a few meetings, I 
hurried on to Doncaster to see my father-in-law, 
then living with his daughters, who kept a young 
ladies' school. 

What a meeting was that with my sister, who 
had shared my sorrows in those first years in 
America. Dear father was out for a drive. When 
he first saw my child, and was told u William's wife 
and child are here, he fell fainting, and was not able 
to see me for hours. Then as I approached his bed 
side, his eyes filled with tears, and he said : " For- 



A TRIP TO ENGLAND. 95 

give me, Mary, forgive me," at the same time trying 
to explain why he left America before we reached 
it. After a little, he said : " Mary, I would give all 
I ever possessed if I could believe as you do, that 
Jesus died for me. If I was only sure of my elec- 
tion ! " I could only repeat God's precious promises. 
Oh ! that early, cruel teaching ! How it saddened 
and darkened his last days, when faith would have 
given him such triumphant victory ; for " Him that 
cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out." 

After a few days I left for my own father's house, 
where I found him a shattered, broken man, having 
had a shock of paralysis. He had gone through the 
village, saying to the people : " Mary is coming ! 
Mary is coming ! " Yes, his Mary had really come. 
The old love of former days was in his heart for 
me. My own little girl was much puzzled at my 
calling him " Father," questioning me one day as to 
whether he was my "really father, or a make-believe 
father." 

How quickly the days sped away. Hearing that 
my husband was well in America I could the more 
freely enjoy myself, and went to London to see my 
brother and cousin, and, if possible, hear the two 
noted preachers, C. H. Spurgeon and Morley Pun- 
shon, the great lights of my girlhood days, both of 
whom are now shining in glory. Another of those 



98 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

lights was Dr. Beaumont. I well remember a 
sermon I heard him preach in Cambridge when I 
was a girl. The text was : Whosoever shall fall on 
this stone shall be broken; but on whosoever it 
shall fall it will grind him to powder." God gave 
him great power. We could almost seem to hear 
the grinding. The effect was marvelous. Many 
were in tears, and many rose to their feet. It was 
an awfully solemn hour. 

" Billy Dawson " was another of the preachers of 
those early days; a unique Yorkshireman, whose 
Christian hedger was the means of his conversion. 
Hearing the old hedger singing so often and so joy- 
ously, he inquired of him the source of his joy, 
when the hedger began preaching Jesus to him. 
The arrow hit the mark. u Billy Dawson " was con- 
verted, and soon took all England by storm with his 
preaching. His style of preaching was peculiar to 
himself. I remember his comparing the world's 
choice to a man stooping to pick up bright farthings 
that lay at his feet, when a step beyond were lying 
glittering sovereigns. Many who were doing that 
very thing would call him " an old fool," but in the 
estimation of God and the holy angels he was one 
of the wise ones of earth. 

Not long after, another bright star arose in 
Yorkshire — Esquire Brook. One morning as the 



A TRIP TO ENGLAND. 97 

" 'Squire " was in great haste to follow his hounds 
and the party who had preceded him in the chase, 
he rushed to his stables to upbraid his servant, 
John, for being so long in bringing his horse; when 
lo ! John was on his knees praying for his ungodly 
master, that God would spare his life, and allow no 
accident to befall him that day. The " 'Squire" beat 
a precipitate retreat, and though really somewhat 
touched, yet called from a safe distance in a harsh 
voice for John to hurry. He mounted his horse and 
rode off at full speed to join his friends. Coming 
to a wall he spurred his horse on to make the leap? 
but he refused. The angry rider drove his spurs 
into the horse's flanks till the blood and sweat min- 
gled upon the faithful creature, but still he would 
not leap. Brook, greatly astonished, dismounted 
and looked over the wall, when, to his amazement, 
he saw a deep pit, into which both horse and rider 
must have inevitably plunged to their destruction 
had the leap been taken. No wonder John's prayer 
recurred to him, and sounded like the voice of God 
in his ears. Then and there he began a new life for 
God, and God sent him like a flaming torch through- 
out the country to preach salvation to perishing 
souls. I well remember going to Norfolk with my 
father to hear him. No one who ever heard him 
preach on the joy of heaven over one sinner that 



98 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

repenteth, or on the arrival of a soul from earth — 
now and then bursting into song, the audience some- 
times joining in the singing — can ever forget the 
wonderful nights of his imagination, his intense 
earnestness, his tender pathos, his pleading with 
sinners to become reconciled to God. In one of his 
meetings, where all the standing room was packed, I 
lelt on my neck the warm breath of some person 
standing behind me, and heard now and then the 
exclamation, " Glory ! Glory ! " growing fainter and 
fainter till it was lost in a whisper. Turning to see 
who it was as the meeting broke up, I saw standing 
there a faithful servant of God, who helped me more 
in my early Christian life than any one else whom 
I can remember. There he stood, rigid as a statue, 
a tear glittering on either cheek, and his face shin- 
ing like the face of an angel, even as did Stephen's. 
The glory was on face and brow, and we all mar- 
velled as we looked upon him. Years after he sent 
for me as he was upon his death bed. His parting- 
words to me were : *' Mary, read your Bible and 
good religious biographies, pray much, attend class 
meeting regularly, and you will have no occasion to 
complain of leanness." Dear Mr. Cousins, how 
blessed is his memory. If every preacher gave as 
good advice, and kept as loving watch over the young 
of his flock as he did, there would not be so much 



A TRIP TO ENGLAND. 99 

frivolity, so much back-sliding, so little real spiritual 
backbone in the church of God to-day. Mr. Cousins' 
sister and her family are now in this country. His 
two nephews are members, one of the New Hamp- 
shire, the other of Vermont Conference, and the 
former took an important position in the Legisla- 
ture of 1891 on the temperance question. 

All this has been brought to my mind by this 
little reminiscence of Esquire Brook. Oh ! yes, I 
missed the thrill in the Methodist church on my 
visit there which I always recognized in my early 
days. Yet I think Dr. Kobert Newton, Jabez Bunt- 
ing, and Dr. Wiseman were all casting a sort of halo 
of holy light on my native land at that time. 

I was doomed to disappointment, not hearing 
either Spurgeon or Punshon, as both were attending 
missionary meetings through the country. Oh ! 
those missionary meetings ! How they have en- 
thused young hearts in the past, mine among the 
number ! But more of this hereafter. 

How swiftly flew that week in London, visiting 
dear ones and seeing more sights than I had ever 
seen in London before. At the close of a day spent 
in the " Crystal Palace " at Syndenham, where the 
world's fair was held, I was amazed to know I had 
walked about twelve miles that day, when I remem- 
bered that I had had to be carried on deck only a 



100 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

few short weeks before. The sight of home and 
friends, with God's help, had contributed to this 
marvelous change. But I must needs hurry back to 
spend a little time with my dear father and other 
relatives whom I had not met since my return. 

Passing over much that is of interest to me, I 
come to the last Sabbath at Ely, where father had 
accompanied me to attend the love-feast. The Lord 
gave me great enlargement of soul, and as I briefly 
recounted the loving kindness of God to me and 
mine, by land and by sea, every heart was moved ; 
and as the dear father, with his paralyzed, stammer 
ing tongue, tried to solicit prayers for me for my 
safe journey, ending by speaking of the blessed 
reunion above, tears flowed freely. I then knelt in 
prayer, and the melting power of God seemed to fill 
the room. My nephew, then a boy of ten years, who 
was present, wrote me years after at the time of his 
conversion, that the impressions of that evening 
never left him. Oh ! that all our meetings might be 
under the power of the mighty God of Israel. What 
a work would be done for God ! 

I, then, with my father, visited my own dear 
mother's sister and her family at Wisbeach, and 
spent a little time in reviewing the scenes of other 
days, leaving them with the glad assurance that we 
should meet again, many of us, in the " Sweet by 



A TRIP TO ENGLAND. 101 

and by." Oh ! that I could have rejoiced in that glad 
anticipation for all. Here I parted with my dear 
father, to see him no more till the morning of the 
resurrection. His bowed head, his tearful eyes, as 
he stood leaning against the side of the railroad 
station, are imprinted on my memory. 

And now, tearful and yet trustful, my face is 
turned again towards America. The visit to my 
much loved early home is ended; with all its 
changes, some were left to welcome and love me, 
and to follow me with their love and their prayers. 
Farewell, old home ! I may never look on thee 
again ; but the same God will watch over us all ; the 
same sun, and moon, and stars will shine above us, 
and the same heaven will welcome us, if we are 
clothed in the raiment of the redeemed, " washed 
and made white in the blood of the Lamb." 

On we go, trusting the guiding of Father's hand 
on land and sea. Soon we change cars. The super- 
intendent asks : " Madam, have you no gentleman 
with you ? " " No, sir," was my reply. He led me 
to a first-class carriage, and on my telling him I had 
only a second-class ticket, he informed me that I 
could ride in the first class until we came to a certain 
place, and then 1 could change. I found in this 
compartment one lady and two gentlemen, the latter 
absorbed in reading the news. A remark from my 



102 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

child drew from roe an answer that attracted the 
attention of the gentleman opposite, who laid down 
his paper and remarked : " Then, madam, you believe 
in an over-ruling Providence ? " " Sir," I replied, 
" I could not do otherwise." This gentleman, I sub- 
sequently ascertained, was Hon. E. Ball, M. P. This 
led to a conversation which brought the occupants 
of the compartment into quite friendly relations. 
On my answering the question as to where my home 
in England was, the gentleman said: " Downham ? 
My uncle lives there." Then another surprise as I 
named my father, who had done business with him 
five years. " But whom did you marry ? " "A son 
of Robert Few," I answered. The paper dropped 
from the other gentleman's hand, as in a tone of sur- 
prise he asked : " Which son ? " " The second son, 
William," I answered. " Well, well, I have bought 
many crombs of wheat of him." In surprise, I 
asked : "Are you Mr. McGregor, the corn merchant 
of Wisbeach ? " " The same," was the reply. 
" Then, sir, you know my Uncle John See, the 
builder?" "I do, indeed." I began to see now 
why the Lord had put it into the heart of the super- 
intendent to place me in that car. When I reached 
the place named by the superintendent, and was 
about to take a seat in the second-class carriage, Mr. 
McGregor insisted on changing tickets with me, so I 



A TRIP TO ENGLAND. 103 

rode through in the first-class carriage to my friends, 
the Wilsons, at Sowerby Bridge. 

I found that Brother Wilson, who had crossed 
the water with me, would not return, as he had 
decided to join the British Conference. His brother, 
however, had decided to go to America. 

In the morning I was surprised and pleased to 
receive a package from the Hon. E. Ball, M. P.; a 
kind letter, a book, the life of his own daughter and 
books for my little girl. On the fly leaf of the book 
presented me, were these words : " Mrs. Few, the 
Lord has been with you and he still will be." Then 
followed the blessed benediction in Num. 6 : 24-26. 
What a comfort have those lines, written by that 
man of God, been to me many times when I have 
been in trial and perplexity. 

Our state-room not being secured in advance, and 
there being a rush of people who were returning to 
America from the World's Fair, we were somewhat 
delayed, but at last succeeded in securing passage on 
the Daniel Webster, an emigrant ship which carried 
about nine hundred passengers. I was the only first 
cabin lady passenger, and Mr. Wilson the only first 
cabin gentleman passenger. After being fourteen 
days on board, I find this record in my diary : " Sun- 
day, September 27, 1857. For five days and nights 
our vessel has tossed on waves mountain high. I 



104 MARY W. R RICHARDSON. 

am trying to learn the great lesson of contentment." 
It was indeed a stormy passage of more than six 
long weeks. Storm followed storm, passengers were 
rudely thrown from their berths, several receiving 
very severe cuts and bruises, so that the surgeon 
was almost constantly employed. The calms seemed 
almost as bad as the storms, for the ship swayed 
from side to side in long reaches, so that nothing 
could be kept in place. There was much sickness 
among the children on board, and nine little children 
died and were buried in the ocean. My heart ached 
for the poor, sorrowing mothers. My own little girl 
was very sick, but by the blessing of God upon the 
means used for her recovery she was graciously 
restored. I find this record in my diary with regard 
to her at that time : u She is, indeed, a dear child. 
She loves to talk of death, of heaven and of eternity. 
She says she will try to be good. Lord help her by 
Thy Holy Spirit. I gave her to Thee before she was 
born. She is at Thy disposal. Lord, Thou art " too 
wise to err, too good to be unkind." I can trust my 
child and dear, absent husband in Thy hands." 

My heart was comforted at times as I heard sing- 
ing below us, there being several ministers in the 
second cabin. I only attended one of the meetings 
held. I remember how sweetly I was cheered at 
one time by hearing them sing, u God Moves in a 



A TRIP TO ENGLAND. 105 

Mysterious Way." The surgeon, who was an unbe- 
liever, told me one day that after one of the meet- 
ings the passengers had drank thirty-six bottles of 
ale. I said to him one day : " Doctor, it seems to 
me you ought not to be on a ship of this kind. It 
seems to me just as if you were running away from 
Providence, and were off the track of God's plan 
for you." He looked at me in amazement and said : 
" I am ; I ran away from my parents, from my 
home, and from Christian influences." As we 
neared port after a rough and stormy passage, but 
still a passage marked with God's mercy to me and 
mine, I wrote a letter of kind, Christian counsel to 
him, intending to place it in his hand when the time 
came for us to separate. My little daughter, learning 
for whom it was intended, took the little package, 
which inclosed a necktie as a parting gift, and car- 
ried it to him unbeknown to me. She returned to 
me to ask with considerable concern what I had 
written to the doctor that made him cry so. I was 
much chagrined that my child should have handed 
it to him, and went to him at once to make an 
explanation. I found him on the quarter deck. As 
we turned about I saw a commotion in the fore- 
castle and said, "Doctor, what is that ? " He looked 
and exclaiming, " My God ! it is a mutiny," sprang 
away from me, rushed to the cabin, notified those 



106 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

whom he met to arm themselves, and stationing 
himself at a spot where he could cover the space 
occupied by the mutineers, revolver in hand, he 
shouted : " Take another step forward and I'll blow 
your brains out, you scoundrels." He kept them at 
bay till the mutiny was quelled. Had it occurred 
sooner, no doubt disastrous results might have fol- 
lowed. As it was we were mercifully preserved, 
though some of the crew were seriously cut and 
bruised. Throughout the whole affair my mind was 
kept stayed on God, and I was calm and peaceful. 

Just before landing I had a temptation to evade 
the custom-house duty on some goods I had pur- 
chased for my millinery business by what would 
have been by many considered an innocent subter- 
fuge. Principle prevailed, however, and I placed 
them in one receptacle, that they might be the more 
easily inspected, but to my surprise the officer left 
them entirely untouched. 

At New York we were speedily transferred to 
the steamer for Boston. There I had fresh reason 
for gratitude to God for my own preservation, as I 
met on board a widow with her three children, on 
their way to New England from California. Her 
husband had gone down on the fated Central 
America. The sadness of the bereavement was 
enhanced by the fact that when they reached the 



A TRIP TO ENGLAND. 107 

steamer on which they were to sail from California 
they found their baggage had been left behind, and 
the husband went back to seek it and follow on a 
later steamer, the Central America. I spent much 
of that night in trying to comfort the bereaved wife 
and mother. God gave me a safe passage to Boston, 
and ere many days I was in my home in Amherst 
with my dear husband, and a heart filled with grati- 
tude to God for all His mercies and loving kind- 
nesses to me, in that he had kept me safe in all our 
perils and journeyings, restored my health in such 
good measure, and permitted me to find my husband 
alive and in good health. 

" In the future let me serve Thee 

Wisely in Thy chosen way; 
Ever truer, purer, brighter, 

Growing like Thee every day; 
Men shall see that all my powers 

Come from Thee, whom I obey." 



CHAPTER VIII. 



WOMAN'S HOUR. 



"Beyond the portal that never swings 

Is waiting the age of gold. 

The dawn of peace, on the day of God, 

By poet and seer foretold ; 

Who holds the key to the lofty gate? 

Where lingers the hand with the touch of fate ? 

Behold a strong and gentle host ! 

They gather from every clime and coast, 

With steady faith and a purpose high, 

And hearts united by holy tie; 

Who runneth may read — 'tis womans' hour! 

The lips long silent are clothed with power! 

The heart of the world has come abroad, 

Its cry has entered the ear of God. 

The age of might grows old and late 

When woman stands at the mystic gate." 

FOUND ON my return that the little Meth- 
odist Church was in trouble. It must needs 
be that offenses come; but woe unto him 
by whom the offense cometh." For years 
the church did not recover from the blow. After a 
lew months we had no regular pastor. Young stu- 
dents with more or less wisdom came and went. 




WOMAN'S HOUR. 109 

God blessed me in my business life, but He again 
saw best to lead me in trying paths, that I might 
glorify Him still further in tribulation. My husband, 
never at rest, grew more and more uneasy, and at 
last started for the West. As we parted I said to 
him : " I have moved thirteen times in twelve 
years, and will move no more until }^ou find a place 
where we can settle/' Poor soul, " seeking rest and 
finding none.' 1 The Spirit of God followed him 
every where. Tracts even put into his hands in the 
cars, prayers offered in homes where he was enter- 
tained, and he found he could not flee from the 
presence of God, however he might try. At last, 
heart-sick, as well as home- sick, he returned after 
traveling many miles and spending a good deal of 
money. 

Our church doors were closed a part of the time, 
and at such times I worshipped with the people in 
whose church my first Sabbath in Amherst was 
spent. The subject on which the pastor spoke at 
one of the u Preparatory Lectures " was the talents. 
He was very emphatic in his announcement that the 
Lord wanted the women to keep silent in the 
churches. Many eyes were turned toward me, as I 
had sometimes spoken in the meetings and no other 
women had done so. After many tears and prayers 
I addressed the following letter to the pastor : 



110 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

"Amherst, N, H., March 8, I860. 

" Dear Sir — Will you think it presumption in me 
to address a few lines to you on the subject brought 
before us on Thursday afternoon? It is a subject to 
which I have given considerable prayerful thought. 
If I am in error I need only to be convinced of it to 
change my views. 

" You, sir, as well as all Amherst people know that 
at our own (Methodist) social meetings I speak and 
pray, esteeming it both a duty and a privilege, stand- 
ing ready always to ; give a reason for the hope that 
is in me ; ' and if from early education, or other 
cause, I have mistaken the path of duty and gone 
contrary to the will and word of God, it is high time 
I knew it. If you, sir, should be the instrument of 
showing me my error, you know the reward : ' He 
that converteth a sinner from the error of his way 
shall save a soul from death, and hide a multitude 
of sins.' 

" Now, sir, I will give you a few thoughts, and 
leave it with you to prove the fallacy or weakness of 
any arguments, if such appear. 

u First, in almost all of our churches a large pro- 
portion of the members are women. In our social 
meetings they far outnumber the men in attend- 
ance. Then is it not a question of practical interest 
what the rights and duties of Christian women are 
in our social religious meetings ? 

" It is generally admitted that no woman is called 
of God to preach or to occupy any official position 
in the church that implies authority. We hold in 



WOMAN'S HOUR. 

common that both nature and Scripture forbid her, 
But there is not the same harmony in our views 
with regard to her position in social meetings. In 
our Methodist Churches the women speak and pray 
without restraint. In others it is felt that the 
practice is of doubtful authority, not to say pro- 
priety. For instance, in your own church it is not 
only discouraged, but forbidden. 

" Did the Apostle Paul forbid it ? If so, the true 
Christian woman will bow with unhesitating sub- 
mission. The passages that are supposed to settle 
this question are the following : 1 Cor. 14 : 34-35, 
and 1 Tim. 2: 11-12. I wish to ask, sir, if the lan- 
guage of these texts is not subject to the ordinary 
rules of interpretation. Was it not addressed to 
particular churches, and applicable to their peculiar 
condition ? It seems to me we are to ascertain what 
in it was local and temporary, and what essential 
and universal. If the most obvious sense involves 
gross absurdities, or conflicts with other inspired 
truth, and a modified construction suggested by the 
connection, frees from all embarrassment, then the 
modification is not only admissible, but necessary. 

" I think Paul does not base this prohibition on 
his apostolic authority, nor on any special inspira- 
tion for the regulation of the churches, but on the 
divinely established relation of the sexes and the 
law regulating it. This relation was sustained by 
Adam and Eve, and the law was given to them. 
Paul neither established this relation nor made the 
law. He only applied them to the Corinthian and 



112 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

Ephesian churches. His application did not alter 
the relation or law, and any interpretation of it that 
is inconsistent with the original relation or law is 
evidently inadmissible. I think Paul recognizes no 
such distinction as some suppose between public 
and private meetings. His rule and reasoning apply 
to all social meetings on Sabbath day or week day, 
in the vestry or private room, where both sexes are 
represented. 

''According to the common interpretation there is 
no propriety in women's speaking in covenant or 
class meetings any more than in a conference meet- 
ing. As I view it, it requires the exclusion of 
woman's voice from our choirs, and demands a new 
arrangement of our day schools and Sabbath schools : 
for no woman may teach males ; and as the relation 
and law are found where there was only one man 
and one woman on earth, it would seem to forbid a 
wife speaking to or even before her own husband, 
and make Paul immediately disregard his own coun- 
sel in directing women to ask their husbands at 
home. 

a The common interpretation of this prohibition 
makes Paul grossly inconsistent, as in 1 Cor. 11 : 14, 
he refers to nature as teaching the law of propriety 
in the relation between the sexes, and the natural 
condition of speaking or teaching would seem to be 
an abilitjr and disposition and opportunity on the 
one part to speak or teach, and on the other to hear 
or learn, and that without respect to sex. Paul 
commended female teachers, as Priscilla, Phebe and 



WOMAN'S HOUR. 113 

others, and gave directions how women should speak 
and pray in the church at Corinth, where this inter- 
pretation makes him soon after command them to 
be silent (1 Cor. 11 : 3-15). The law to which Paul 
refers in the 11th Chapter of 1 Cor., where he allows 
a woman to speak, is the same as that in the 14th, 
where he commands her to keep silence. 

"There is another method of explaining this lan- 
guage, suggested by the connection that makes it 
harmonize with other passages of equal authority, 
with which, by the common interpretation, it con- 
flicts. This assumes that the prohibition is of objec- 
tionable modes of speaking, and not of the act of 
speaking ; that Paul forbids such speaking as causes 
confusion and disorder. The heathen and the Jew 
alike regarded woman as an inferior being, a mere 
appendage to man, fitted only for the low offices of 
sense and household service. The Rabbins taught 
that a woman should know nothing but the use of 
her distaff, and one of them said : ; Let the words 
of the law be burned rather than delivered to a 
woman.' The Apostle sought to raise them from 
this degradation without doing unnecessary violence 
to the prejudices of his time. He asserted her equal 
interest in the provisions of the Gospel, and yet 
guarded against the excess of newly acquired lib- 
erty. His apparent deference to the prejudices 
against woman proves no more than his similar 
treatment of circumcision, slavery, and polygamy. 
The emancipation of woman and her enduement by 
the Spirit, appear to have been followed by some 



114 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

irregularities. This was manifest in the church at 
Corinth. Heedless of the restrictions of nature and 
religion, women went into the meetings to ask ques- 
tions, to engage in disputes, and assist in the general 
disorder that prevailed. No wonder Paul endeav- 
ored to curb these extravagances. The speaking or 
teaching that Paul rebuked was such as implied 
insubordination to man. It violated a law that was 
originally imposed on one woman in her relations to 
one man, such as would be wrong in the family or 
the church. It was turbulent, bold, masculine. It 
was as different, according to our best Biblical com- 
mentators, from that in our social meetings as were 
the intemperate revels in the church in Corinth 
from the administration of the Lord's Supper; at 
least such are my views. 

" The Gospel recognizes no distinction between 
the sexes. c In Christ Jesus there is neither male 
nor female.' The same obligation rests on both, 
to ' believe with the heart unto righteousness, 
and to confess with the mouth unto salvation." It 
is the duty of both to ' pray without ceasing.' The 
manhood of Christ never resented woman's prayer, 
nor refused to listen to her speech. There is no 
reproof of the woman of Samaria, though she 
exhorted the men of her city to come to Christ. 
And it is difficult to believe that there is anything 
in the language of Paul that frees woman from the 
duty or denies her the privilege of modestly con- 
fessing the Savior whom she loves, of exhorting 
sinners whom she could save, or praying for bless- 



WOMAN'S HOUR. 115 

ings she needs in any meeting of the church for 
social worship. 

u One thought more, sir, and I leave the subject. 
If Paul's meaning was that women should not speak 
or pray in social meetings, then she can not be in 
the path of duty when she does. And if out of the 
path God has marked out for her, will He smile 
upon her and bless her labors ? Has female instru- 
mentality been owned of God ? Have sinners been 
convicted of sin under the influence of her prayers 
and exhortations ? More than this, have not souls 
been converted, and lived and died in the faith, prais- 
ing God with their latest breath for woman's gospel 
ministrations ? There have been such instances, my 
dear sir, in the experience of her who thus addresses 
you. And did not God bless the labors of Mrs. 
Fletcher, of Mrs. Rogers, of Lady Huntington, of 
Elizabeth Fry, and scores of others? Have not the 
wives of some of our missionaries not only proved 
themselves co-laborers with their husbands, but even 
supplied their places when absent from sickness, 
by reading the Bible or some religious work, and 
offering prayer in the presence of the people ? Do 
we not read that at such times every eye has moist- 
ened, sinners have quailed, and a deep solemnity 
pervaded the whole congregation? I have witnessed 
such seasons ; no excitement, no fanaticism, but a 
feeling that God was there, and the place was awful, 
yet glorious, on account of his presence. Would 
God thus honor woman's work if she were pursuing 
a course of action in opposition to His will ? 



116 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

a If you deem my thoughts or questions worthy 
of reply, such reply shall be carefully studied by 
" Yours respectfully, 

" M. W. Few." 

In a few days I received the following reply : 
" Amherst, March 14, 1860. 

u Dear Mrs. Few — I do not think it presumptuous 
in you to ask my opinion on any question of doctrine 
or duty which may interest your mind. So far from 
it that I like your spirit in writing, and especially 
the distinct recognition of the Supreme authority of 
the Word of God. I am also happy to observe that 
you do not think that women should teach or preach 
as ministers, and that the point in which we differ, 
if we differ at all, is whether women shall speak or 
take part in social meetings when both sexes are 
present. And here let me remind you that the 
question does not respect what might be my judge- 
ment or wishes, or the result of my observation, but 
what is the mind of the Spirit. Now, that the Old 
Testament gives no encouragement to such a prac- 
tice, I believe, all Christians admit. The distinction 
between the sexes was uniformly regarded in all the 
arrangements of the Temple and Synagogue services. 

" With the introduction of the more comprehen- 
sive dispensation of the New Testament, and the con- 
sequent elevation of woman as a Christian and a dis- 
ciple, did the Apostles or the Savior intend that she 
should take part in public religious assemblies ? 
Such evidently was the opinion of some among the 



WOMAN'S HOUR. 117 

Corinthians, and in their forwardness they rose to 
speak and pray uncovered; and you observe how 
Paul endeavored to dissuade them from that practice 
by showing that it was at variance with the delicacy 
and propriety of woman's true position. 

" On this point we are, I think, agreed. At a later 
stage of the epistle he gives the more positive 
directions which you find in verses 34 and 35 of the 
14th Chapter. In regard to this language and that 
in 1 Tim. 2 : 11, 12, I think that the obvious and 
simple interpretation is the true one. I know of no 
reason for regarding it as peculiar to that church 
and that age any more than what Paul has said of 
the subject of discipline in the same epistle. And 
this opinion is confirmed by what is said in Tim., 
where no particular case was in mind, but a general 
rule was stated. As this subject is fully discussed 
in Barnes' and other commentators, I will not 
enlarge on the exegesis. 

" In respect to the utility of women's speaking 
and praying in mixed assemblies, let me add that 
the influence of woman depends so much on her 
maintaining her true sphere that we must not hastily 
infer she will do more good by assuming any doubt- 
ful position. What is gained in one direction is lost 
in another. So that a thing in itself, seemingly 
right, does not in the end produce the good expected. 
I can understand that the earnest entreaties of a 
child might be employed, and the preaching of 
women (Quakeresses) has been employed to save 
souls. But that fact would not establish the pio- 



118 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

priety of children's exhorting or of females preach- 
ing. We must in this and similar cases act on 
general rules, and as very few would discriminate 
as carefully as you, and fewer still be as ready to 
submit to what should be the dictates of propriety, 
I think it fortunate that the rule is clear. There 
are other fields open to the zeal and love of woman 
in the family, in the Sabbath school, in the neigh- 
borhood, and in these less public ways. God has 
given her a power of persuasion, of gentle but deci- 
sive influence, which man can not employ. 

" I have thus written somewhat hurriedly in an- 
swer to the main points of your letter. I have done 
this with entire confidence in your wish to know the 
path of duty. It is not in my heart to abridge your 
privileges, or say anything opposed to the practices 
in which you were educated. I believe you are 
actuated by a desire to do good, and my only wish is 
that you exercise your gifts in a manner which will 
on the whole be most for the honor of Christ and 
the good of His cause. It would be easy for me to 
enlarge on the foregoing topics, but I feel that the 
main question is settled by the words of the Apostle, 
who intended, it seems to me, to keep the sphere of 
woman's actions distinct from that of man. And if 
at any time it should seem inconvenient, still the 
rule should generally be upheld. 

" Your letter would have received an earlier 
answer had I not been so unwell that I could not 
use my pen. My views are not unlolded at length, 
but if vou would like further information I shall be 



WOMAN'S HOUR. 119 

happy to talk with you on the subject. As you 
have been trained to look at the matter from a 
different point, I hope you will accept what I have 
written as a help in your study by which you may 
rest in a conclusion satisfactory and Scriptural. 
" With sincere esteem, 

" Your Friend." 

What a change has come over my mind since 
the above correspondence, and also over the mind 
of my friend, for women have both spoken and 
prayed in his church in his presence without hin- 
drance. In my own mind, a more marked change 
has taken place. I once thought a woman strangely 
out of place in a pulpit, and I shall not soon forget 
my own feelings on standing in the "sacred desk" 
for the first time; and the strange awe has not left 
me yet. Still, I now believe there are women called 
of God to the ministry of the word, who preach that 
word " in the demonstration of the Spirit and with 
power," and whose work is signally honored of the 
Lord. Had I not been convinced of this years ago, 
the convention of the World's and National Woman's 
Christian Temperance Union held in Boston in the 
autumn of 1891, would have convinced me. Who 
dare say the beloved author of "The Christian's 
Secret of a Happy Life," Hannah Whitall Smith, 
Frances E. Willard, Mary T. Lathrop, Lady Henry 



120 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

Somerset, Mrs. Booth, Anna Shaw, and scores — 
yes, hundreds of other Christian women are not 
anointed to preach the glad tidings ? " The Lord 
giveth the word; the women that publish the tid- 
ings are a great host. Kings of armies flee ; they 
flee, and she that tarrieth at home divideth the 
spoil-' (Ps. 68: 11, 12, R. V.) Woman has given 
the bread of lile to thousands, and will give it to 
thousands more who are waiting the soft touch of 
her loving hands, the inspiration of her voice, and 
the blessed gospel which she brings. God gives to her 
a quick intuition, which, added to her other natural 
qualifications, and sanctified by Divine grace, fits 
her for a work man can not do ; and what she may 
accomplish in the next century, which our Miss 
Willard denominates " woman's century," will be 
seen when my head is lying low in the dust. Charles 
Wesley, a century ago, said : 

'' Woman, we own thee foremost still. 

Where stated prayer is made to appear, 
They first the house of worship fill. 

They first the joyful tidings bear ; 
The welcome messenger receive, 

And patterns to the faithful live." 

Last at the cross, first to behold the risen Lord, 
" O, woman," then and now, " great is thy faith. It 
is coming to be recognized as a fact, that in propor- 



WOMAN'S HOUR. 121 

tion as the people of any age or nation accept the 
live-giving principles of Christianity, does woman 
come to her kingdom, which is the ' kingdom of our 
God and of His Christ.' " We are slowly creeping 
onward and upward toward the full development of 
God's idea for woman ; towards that hour when she 
shall stand in whatever place, and labor in whatever 
sphere God has fitted her for, in the elevation of the 
race and in hastening the coming kingdom of our 
Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I said we were 
" slowly creeping." There is an old adage, "A child 
must creep before it can walk." I think, as we 
take a retrospective glance at the condition of 
woman in the past, in our own and other lands, 
and compare it with her present condition, we shall 
be obliged to confess we are getting somewhat 
beyond the creeping stage, and have begun to walk. 
In 1836, we find there were open to women in 
our country seven remunerative employments, viz. : 
She could be a teacher, dress-maker, seamstress, 
milliner, servant, or factory operative. To-day she 
may be book-keeper, pharmacist, author, lecturer, 
sculptor, painter, lawj^er, minister, type-setter, etc., 
in addition to the above. She may even be county 
clerk, school superintendent, overseer of the poor, 
prison commissioner, pension agent, inspector of the 
sanitary condition of tenement and school-houses, 



122 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

or physician, and do her work so as to be approved 
by both God and man. Since the Civil War, she 
may, if she will, enter our theological schools. The 
census of 1880 records one hundred and sixty-five 
ministers, seventy- five lawyers, and two thousand 
four hundred and thirty-two physicians among the 
women of the United States. It is quite safe to say, 
the number is greatly increased to-day. 

There were no colleges that admitted women at 
the close of the Revolution. At the close of the 
Civil War there was one — Oberlin, in Ohio. All 
hail ! grand old Oberlin. Now we have more than 
three hundred and fifty colleges, universities, and 
schools of higher education for women. 

Frances Willard says : " The world is slowly 
making the immense discovery that not what a 
woman does, but what she is, makes home a possible 
creation. It is the Lord's ark, and does not need 
steadying ; it will survive the wreck of systems and 
the crash of theories, for the home is but the efflor- 
escence of woman's nature under the nurture of 
Christ's Gospel. She came into the college and ele- 
vated it, into literature and hallowed it, into the 
business world and ennobled it. She will come 
into government and purify it. into politics and 
cleanse its Stygian pool, for woman will make 
home-like every place she enters, and she will enter 



WOMAN'S HOUR. 123 

every place on this round earth," — even the General 
Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church ; 

though 

" J. M. B., conservative he, 
Says we can't go to General C." 

I indorse every word of the above quotation from 
Miss Willard, and, of course, I indorse my own addi- 
tion to it with regard to the General Conference. I 
can remember the time when I should have shrank 
from the expression with regard to woman's coming 
into government and politics, but I do not to-day; 
for, as I have watched this movement for many 
years, my prejudices have melted away, and I have 
come to see with clear vision what woman may, and 
can do in His service who was the Great Emanci- 
pator of women. 

I quote from an article by Mary A. Livermore : 
" There are thirty-one States and Territories which 
have conferred the franchise on women in some 
form, from the petition vote of Texas, Mississippi, 
and Arkansas, to the full suffrage exercised by the 
women of Wyoming for twenty years.* This has 
been accomplished, not by the fanaticism of a few 
abnormal and unbalanced women, as many superfi- 



*And now in the Spring of 1894 Colorado joins Wyoming in giving 
women the full right of suffrage in all elections, municipal, State, and 
National, on the same terms as men. 



124 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

cial objectors declare. It is the legitimate outgrowth 
of the principles of our republican government, and 
has come naturally from the evolution of woman as 
a human being, which has proceeded through the 
ages. No one who has studied the question can lack 
faith in its ultimate success, and the beneficial 
results it is sure to accomplish ; for the ballot in the 
hands of woman is the synonym of her legal equality 
with man, and legal justice has always preceded 
social equity. Woman has wrought more of good 
than evil in the world during her ages of ignorance, 
bondage, and degradation. What, then, may not be 
expected from her in righteousness and helpfulness 
when she is accorded freedom, equity, and oppor- 
tunity." 

This chapter on woman's hour would be very 
incomplete were nothing said on the grand work of 
woman in the interests of temperance. The woman's 
crusade of 1874, when the Spirit of God came down 
in a wondrous baptism upon the women of the 
West, in God's fullness of time, when that special 
work had accomplished all that God designed, 
crystalized in the Woman's Christian Temperance 
Union. These local unions have increased mightily 
in numbers and in strength. Banded together in 
the National Woman's Temperance Union, they are 
a mighty power for good — a strong, well-drilled, 



WOMAN'S HOUR. 125 

well-disciplined army. This organization has already 
over forty distinct departments of work which may 
be classified as preventive, educational, social, evan- 
gelistic, and legal. " Its aim is eve^where to bring 
women and temperance in contact with humanity's 
heart-break and sin, to protect the home by pro- 
hibiting the saloon, and to police the State with 
men and women voters committed to the enforce- 
ment of righteous law." 

Laws requiring scientific temperance instruction 
in the public schools have been secured, under the 
very- efficient leadership of Mrs. Mary H. Hunt. 

The Woman's National Christian Temperance 
Union has a publishing house in Chicago which 
employes about 150 men and women, the larger 
number being women; owns its own presses and 
machinery, and pays a dividend of 7 per cent, on all 
money invested. It publishes the Union Signal, 
which has a world-wide reputation and circulation, 
and several other temperance papers. The editors 
of all these papers, and also the directors in the 
establishment, are women. 

In Chicago we find, too, a Woman's Lecture 
Bureau, which sends lecturers wherever there is a 
-call for them. 

In Chicago we find a Woman's Temperance Hos- 
pital, founded by the National Woman's Christian 



MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

Temperance Union, conducted throughout by 
women, where it is daily being proven to the world 
that diseases can be successfully treated without the 
use of alcoholics. 

And then in this same city of Chicago we find 
the grand Temperance Temple, projected by the effi- 
cient president of the Woman's Christian Temper- 
ance Union of Chicago, which is to cost over a 
million of dollars, bring in a large rental, and stand 
as a great object lesson to the world, not only of the 
consecration, perseverance, and business ability of 
the temperance women of America, but also an 
expression of the mother heart of America in its 
great yearning for the suppression of the sin of 
intemperance and its kindred evils, and the up- 
building of all that tends to purity and true nobility 
of character in the family, the state, and the nation. 

In 1883, the World's Woman's Christian Temper- 
ance Union was suggested by Miss Willard, and our 
Round the World Missiona^, Mrs. Mary Clement 
Leavitt, began the blessed work of organizing in all 
lands. The good she has accomplished in her nine 
years' tour, eternity alone will reveal. And so the 
blessed work goes on. u Kings of armies did flee 
apace, and she that tarried at home divided the 



spoil." 



"Who runneth may read — 'tis woman's hour, 
The lips long silent are clothed with power," 

And that power is the power of God. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE WAR. 

11 O Thou, whose wisdom guides my way, 

Though now it seems severe, 
Forbid my unbelief to say 

'There is no wisdom here.' 
Lord ! if Thou bend my spirit low, 

Love only I shall see ; 
The very hand that strikes the blow 

Was wounded once for me." 

>N THE SPRING OF 1860 a stage stopped 
at my door, and a gentleman alighted whom 
I had met at a camp meeting. He said : 
u Sister Few, I have brought you a message 
which I think is from God. A millinery establish - 
ment is for sale in Nashua. I believe we need you 
there in our church. Your business will be better 
there, and I believe your husband will be better 
contented." Having made it a subject of prayerful 
consideration, and finding a good opportunity to sell 
out my business, I did so, though still retaining my 
house in Amherst, and in the month of June we took 




128 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

up our abode in Nashua. My business increased, as 
did also ray responsibility and my expenses. 

I did not as yet see the gathering war cloud 
which was soon to spread over the land. Who that 
was living at that time will ever forget those dark 
days when the tidings of the firing upon Fort Sump- 
ter were heralded from one end of the land to the 
other. My husband rushed into the shop one day 
greatly excited at the news. My sympathy for the 
slaves, whom I believed God would have set free, 
was very great, and I remember I said : '* If I were 
a man I would go and fight for them." I regretted 
this afterward, as I feared it influenced my husband 
in his decision to enlist, which he did soon after. 
He had never loved America as I did, and never 
voted until he voted for Lincoln, always saying : 
4i Let Americans rule America. I don't understand 
their government." I can not describe my feelings 
when I knew my husband had enlisted. He was of 
such a kindly, sympathetic nature. How could he 
endure the scenes he must witness on the battle- 
field? All was excitement in the city. Nothing 
was thought of but enlistments, and when the Sev- 
enth New Hampshire Regiment went into camp at 
Manchester, and the snows of winter fell, we knew 
that the suffering of camp life was begun. Before 
the regiment was ordered to the field my husband 



THE WAR. 129 

took a very severe cold, and I traveled many miles 
hoping to get him discharged, but in vain. In a few 
months they were ordered to more active scenes, 
and among the balmy groves of orange blooms in 
distant Florida his English glasses were forever laid 
aside, and one night on picket duty he, a true soldier, 
came back to his allegiance to his God, and found 
true patriotism in his soul for his adopted country, 
as many of his letters testify. When his earthly 
work was finished he said, almost with his dying 
breath : " Tell them I die as a soldier. I die at my 
post, and do not regret the sacrifice." He died in 
Portsmouth Grove Hospital, July 3, 1863. It was 
wonderful, the manner in which I was sustained 
and helped through this sad year. My husband's 
brother, Robert, was in the Fifth Maine Regiment, 
with the Army of the Potomac. Then came the 
first battle of Ball Run, and Robert was in it. Oh ! 
the anxiety of the next few days. Nearly all busi- 
ness was suspended. Blanched faces were met on 
every hand, and eager inquiries passed from lip to 
lip. One sad day the brother who had invited me 
to Nashua came into my store, and after inquiring 
how business was, and remarking that he had not 
taken a cent in his store that day, he said : " Well, 
put on your bonnet and let us go to meeting. Bless 
God we can have salvation free.'" I went to the 



130 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

meeting. Together we sang, prayed, and rejoiced 
that our all conquering Christ never lost a battle. 
Oh ! glory to God and the Lamb ; I feel something 
of that holy confidence in my soul as I write these 
lines. 

As time went on business became dull, and my 
concern for the welfare of my husband and brother, 
and the care of my child, pressed heavily upon me. 
Under this accumulation of cares my health gave 
way, and I fell as one dead, one day, in my store. 
It was thought my heart had ceased to beat forever ; 
but no, God, even my God was to be glorified in 
more suffering and labor for Him. Business must 
be given up, financial loss was incurred, and days of 
sad weakness followed. On rallying a little, it 
seemed I might take the opportunity to visit some 
old friends. How kind it was in my Heavenly 
Father, who knew how soon all His waves and 
billows would sweep over my soul, to give me to 
bask in the sunshine of the homes of loved friends, 
some of whom I had known in England, and others 
who had made my house their home in earlier days. 
Oh ! the tears of joy that flowed as we recounted all 
the way the Lord had led us. That first autumn in 
New Haven stands out in my memory like an oasis 
in the desert. The blessed class meetings, the 
prayer meetings, where all were melted by the 



THE WAR. 131 

power of love, especially the seven o'clock Sabbath 
morning prayer meetings. I can seem to see the 
sainted Father Bassett, Kice, and a host of elect 
sisters, now. Tears of joy flowed, and shouts of 
victory were heard, for the love of Christ permeated 
all souls, and we were all of one mind. 

11 How our hearts did burn as Jesus spoke, 

And glowed with sacred fire ; 
He stopped, and talked, and fed, and blessed, 

And filled the enlarged desire. 
A Savior ! let all heaven ring ! 
A Savior ! let creation sing ! 
He's God with us, we feel Him ours ; 
His fullness in our soul He pours ; 
'Tis almost o'er, 'tis almost o'er, 
We're joining those who've gone before." 

No potentate on earth could have a more royal 
breakfast than were those morning prayer meetings 
to my soul. After months of such sweet fellowship 
I returned home. 

I copy from my diary, written the last night of 
the old year, the record showing how " coming 
events cast their shadows before." After asking 
God's blessing on my family, my friends, and the 
church at large, I write as follows : 

" And now, O Father, I am Thine, and Thou wilt 
take care of me in the coming year, in which I feel 



132 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

an impression that some great change will come to 
me. Either my husband will become more stable 
and come out fully for the Lord, or he is to be called 
away, or myself or child, I can not tell which ; but 
to-night I can say, whatever comes will be for the 
best, for ' I am my Lord's and He is mine.' " 

I give here a few brief extracts from my dear 
husband's letters : 

u Manchester, N. H., Jan. 11, 1862. 
a This is the last time 1 shall write you from 
Camp Hale. We had orders on Friday to leave on 
Tuesday or Wednesday next for Washington. I 
must leave you and our little one in the hands of a 
merciful God. I have seen some of the trials of 
life, but this is the hardest I ever witnessed. Mary, 
I love you, and ask your forgiveness for everything 
I have ever done to grieve you. Should I never 
return, give our child a good education, and never 
let any one ill-treat her for my sake." 

" New York, Jan. 16, 1862. 

" Raining very hard on our arrival. Such scenes! 

Fighting, swearing, drinking, not only among the 

common soldiers, but drunkenness among those 

higher in authoritv." 

" February 11, 1862. 

"We are a medley this morning; some singing, 
some swearing, some dancing, some very sick. I 
have been out on drill in Broadway, and it was good 
to get out." 



THE WAR. 133 

" Fort Jefferson, Tortugas, Fla., April 1, 1862. 

" They allow us whiskey, and want every man to 
drink a gill a day." 

In the following pages he speaks of the water 

they had to drink, and says he likes it; that it 

reminds him of the water in Downham, the old 

English home. Would to God our boys had had 

less fire-water to drink in the army, and more of 

the water distilled in Nature's own fountains ; it 

had been far better for them and the generation 

that followed them. 

" Tortugas, April 11, 1862. 

"My Mary — I think about you very much, and 
our little girl. I am writing you as though I should 
never see you again, till I meet you at the Judg- 
ment. This is a serious thing. Not one sin will 
escape the notice of a just God. I have broken His 
laws and set his counsel at nought, and how shall 
mortal man stand in his sins before a just God? It- 
troubles me. I am not afraid to go into battle. I 
am willing to stand in my place, but it is a hard 
place for an ungodly person; yet how many are here 
like myself, with no hope in Christ. How can you 
have hope of me ? He that oiFendeth in one point 
is guilty of all, and I break God's law every day. 
How can I escape the punishment of so good a law ? 
It is impossible. Should you die, I should have 
hope of you, but I have none of myself. If I ever 
reach heaven, it mast be through the blood of Jesus. 



134 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

I wonder at the goodness of God to this regiment, 
when I see the sin, the swearing, the drunkenness." 

" This will be a long war, I think, and a desperate 
one. I see no chance of coming home at present. I 
would not take my discharge if I could get it. I 
will stand in my place till the end comes." 

" We have been here three months, and the 
chaplain has not been once to our quarters, nor 
spoken one word of comfort to us." 

" Sunday, June 22, 1862. 

"Mary, I hope to see you and my child again, 
but can not tell. We are close to the rebels, and 
expect an attack any moment. If I am killed in 
this war, I want you to let no one ill use my child. 
I have to stop and wipe the tears from my eyes 
when I think about you and her. God bless you, 
my Mary, and my child." 

" Beaufort, S. C, August, 1862. 

" Some of the boys are terribly homesick, and 
others dread the battle-field. I think of all these 
things, but try and hope for the best." 

St. Augustine, October. 1862. 

" I should like to hear from Brother Robert. Tell 
him, from me, to do right, and not to drink or gam- 
ble. I hope I shall act the man myself on all these 
points. Should I disgrace myself or my company, I 
would never meet vou again. I would rather die. 



THE WAR. 135 

I am a government man — one whom our President 
expects to do his best in this troublous time. 

u I love you and my child, and it was like death 
to part with you." 

" November 25, 1862. 

" I may not live to see it, but you will soon hear 
the sound of c Peace.' ' It is always darkest just 
before day.' " 

" We need different officers from some that we 
have — men that will take the Constitution in one 
hand and the law of God in the other, and abide by 
both." 

u Slavery is a curse to any nation. I would 
rather stay in the army for eleven years to come 
than not fight this thing out." 

" Fernandlna, Florida, May 1, 1863. 

" 1 am in hospital, a very sick man. I want you 
to meet it calmly. I have never known retreat yet. 
I have every kindness shown me. 

" I am willing to bear it. Good by, Mary and 
Susie." 

" Hilton Head, S. C , June, 1863. 

" I shall not move much more unless I get better. 
I am a poor, wasted man. Susie, my child, I'm very 
sick. I want you to be a good child to your mother. 
I may never see you again. How I would like to 
see you once more ; it would be so good to see you 
and your mother. If not, it is all for the best. All 
1 ask for is peace on a good foundation. I can not 



136 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

write more. I have not strength. Good by, my 
Mary and Susie. God bless you. This is hard work 
for me. Shall I never see you again? What a 
thought!" 

u Lovell Gen. Hospital. 
" Portsmouth Grove, Ward 4, R I. 

" I am very low and weak. I have been through 
a great deal to get home. Never mind ; I hope it is 
all for the best. Thank God I am not discouraged. 
I want you and Susie to come to me." 

In the spring of 1868, when the lines could not 
be safely passed through Pennsylvania, I received a 
letter, quoted above, telling me of the sickness of 
my husband and his desire to see me. I wrote to 
Gen. Wool. He replied: "Wait a little, and you 
shall pass." God, in love, it seems to me, made a 
way for him to be sent North, and in a few weeks I 
was beside my sick one at Portsmouth Grove Hos- 
pital, R. I., with our little daughter. The meeting, 
after two years' separation, can be better imagined 
than described. My husband thought he could get 
up and walk once more by my side, but his strength 
failed. Never can I forget the sweet, sad smile with 
which he walked those few steps by my side. 

I secured a boarding place with a dear family of 
Friends whose name I have forgotten. Hospital 
rules did not allow us to remain with the dear inva- 



THE WAR. 137 

lid through the night, but our days were spent with 
him. I tried to make myself useful to others in the 
ward who needed my ministrations. Madam Worm- 
ley, an English lady, the superintendent, or rather 
matron of the hospital, and the doctors were very 
kind to me. The draught on my sympathies by day 
and my climbing a hill every night soon began to 
tell upon my health ; and to add to my solicitude, I 
learned that a dear friend in Amherst, whom I had 
loved as a sister, was thought to be sick unto death. 
Dear loving woman — and must I lose her also? 
Soon came a dispatch : u Come, if possible. She 
wants to see you before she dies." The doctor said : 
wW Go, madam. It will be best for you all." He also 
promised to keep me informed of my husband's con- 
dition. Taking my child with me, I reached home 
only to hear that my friend had passed away. I 
felt not only sick at heart, but sick in body, during 
the three miles' stage ride, and wished so ardently 
that I had started the day before. Oh ! the loving 
hands that ministered to me that long, long night; 
the doctor and kind neighbors were assiduous in 
their attentions. They long since passed away. The 
stricken son of my dear friend threw himself by my 
bedside, sobbing out: u Must Mother Few go, too?" 
Neighbors wept in sympathy. In the morning, 
being somewhat better, I was taken to the sad home, 



138 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

where I was enabled to be of some little assistance 
in regard to the arrangements for the funeral. In 
the midst of the funeral services, a telegram came 
for me to come at once to my dear husband. Leav- 
ing my child, I rushed for the train, reaching the 
city at midnight. A lady whom I met on the train, 
and who knew my sad errand, invited me to her 
house ; but by some accident I was forgotten in the 
morning, and was obliged to have recourse to a loud 
rap in order to bring some one to show me the way 
out of the house, as I greatly feared I should lose 
the boat. The chagrin of my forgetful hostess would 
have been amusing to me had not my head been so 
full of my deep sorrow. Breakfastless, I made my 
way to the boat, and in a few hours was again by my 
sick husband. The doctor informed me that he had 
gone steadily down from the time when I left him. 
Madam Wormley kindly told me she had made 
arrangements for me to sleep near the hospital, so 
there was no more hill climbing for me. Here again 
I saw my loving Father's hand caring for His weak 
and suffering child. What an experience came into 
those weeks of hospital life, writing letters for, and 
comforting, all in the ward as best I could, besides 
caring for my dear, suffering husband. How dread- 
ful it was to see the hundreds brought there after 
the battle of Antietam ! One dear boy in his teens 



THE WAR. 139 

thought me his mother. He became strangely quiet 
as I sat by his side, smoothed his throbbing brow, 
bedewed his face with my tears, and watched the 
flickering lamp of life burn low as his dear mother 
would have done. Occasionally, but not often, I 
remonstrated with an impatient nurse, for nurses 
are human as well as their patients. The superin- 
tendent was, indeed, an angel of mercy, and the 
doctors very kind. If all our poor soldiers could 
have had as good care as did those in the ward 
where my husband lay, no doubt many lives that 
were sacrificed would have been spared. 

Days came and went. My husband grew per- 
ceptibly weaker day by day. I was almost con- 
stantly by his side. I found myself getting 
familiar with death as never before. As the end 
drew near he begged me not to leave him, yet his 
confidence in God was firm and unshaken. He had 
a hard battle with the " King of Terrors,' 1 but at 
last he slept the sleep that knows no waking. I felt 
that I could not have him placed in a pine coffin, 
such as was furnished for the soldiers, and so all that 
love could dictate was furnished, and I returned to 
my home with all that remained of my soldier hus- 
band. A kind neighbor, the Hon. Aaron Lawrence, 
came to aid me, but we missed each other in the 
station at Providence. It seemed, however, that 



140 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

God had a work for him to do in the hospital, as 
subsequent events appeared to prove. 

The going home, with all its sadness, will never 
fade from my memory. The casket was draped with 
the stars and stripes at the funeral, and tears fell 
from my eyes unused to weep, a« Doctor Davis and 
others paid tender tributes to his memory. A choir 
from Amherst rendered sweet music, " We shall 
know each other then," and other beautiful hymns, 
and my poor heart was comforted with the thought 
that in heaven there would be no war, no separation, 
forever with the Lord. 

What tender loving kindness all the dear Am- 
herst friends showed me in those trying, sorrowful 
days. Had I not loved them before, I should have 
loved them now. After a little time spent in arrang- 
ing my affairs, I Vent again to New Haven, where I 
spent the winter endeavoring to work for my Master 
as He opened the way. This was the winter of 1863 
and 1864. During that winter brother Robert 
secured a furlough and made me a visit, in which 
were blended much of pain and pleasure, for three 
years of camp life had left their mark upon him. 
Sometimes as we spoke of the past, his heart would 
seem to soften and he would accompany me to the 
house of prayer ; again, so much of camp life would 
be brought to the front that I would go away weep- 



THE WAR. 141 

ing to spread out his case before God. How needful 
that all Christians keep firmly fixed on the solid 
rock, Jesus Christ. Adverse winds will strike us 
somewhere in life. Oh, how they have beat upon 
my defenseless head, but hiding under the shadow 
of His wing, leaning up against the loving heart of 
my Savior, He has proved to be indeed u a covert 
from the windy storm and tempest." 

Oh, tempest tossed soul, whose eye may rest upon 
this page, nestle close to the heart of the precious 
Christ, and all will be Avell. Trust, trust on ; for 
never did a tempest tossed soul lean on Him, and 
go forward in His strength, without His help and 
comfort. His children can always say — 

"His love in time past forbids me to think 

He'll leave me at last, in trouble to sink; 

Each sweet Ebenezer I have in review, 

Confirms His good pleasure to help me quite through." 

I can not close this sad war chapter without hav- 
ing my deep conviction, founded on the teachings 
of Him " who spoke as never man spake," that there 
is a better way of adjusting differences between in- 
dividuals and nations than by recourse to the weap- 
ons of deadly warfare. The teaching of the Lord 
Jesus was very clear on this subject : u Ye have 
heard that it hath been said, ' an eye for an eye and 
a tooth for a tooth ; ' but I say unto you, 4 that ye 



142 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

resist not evil,' " etc. Again : Ye have heard 
that it hath been said : " Thou shalt love thy neigh- 
bor (neighbor in the Hebrew signifying a Hebrew) 
and hate thine enemy, (enemy, according to the 
Hebrew, being in almost every case in the Gospels 
used in the sense not of a private and personal, but 
a common, or national enemy), but I say unto you, 
'love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do 
good to them that hate you, and pray for them that 
despitefully use you and persecute you, that ye may 
be the children of your Father which is in heaven,' " 
etc. The Lord Jesus in His teaching of the subject 
of forgiveness in Matt., Ch. XVIII., verses 21 to 35 
inclusive, shows the duty of individuals in regard to 
the treatment of those who had injured them. The 
rule, Christ's rule for the individual, is the rule for 
the mass of individuals in church, family, or national 
affairs. 

The same law obtains in every case ; not the old 
law of retaliation, but the royal law of love, of con- 
sideration, of forbearance, truly forgiving, u even as 
God for Christ's sake hath forgiven us." Our law 
imposes penalties upon the man who shoots his 
neighbor, but sanction the men who shoot their 
neighbors if it be in common conflict. I am not 
able to understand how Christians can justify war, 
any more than I can understand how Christians can 



THE WAR. 143 

sanction and even vote for the license of intoxica- 
ting drinks. My Savior is such a real Savior to me, 
His teachings are so real, so like Him, in His whole 
life and dealings with men, that I can not understand 
how those that love Him can spiritualize these 
teachings till they vanish into thin air, as a kind of 
celestial teaching, fit, perhaps for the angels (who 
don't need them), but quite unfit for the inhabitants 
of this poor, sin cursed earth, who do need them. 

I do praise God that Christian people are look- 
ing into these things, and that many are coming to 
see that differences may be settled by arbitration — 
differences between nations, as well as among indi- 
viduals ; and may God hasten the day when " Nation 
shall not lift up sword against nation ; neither shall 
they have war any more." 

Our battle now is a great moral warfare with the 
sin " and folly of an evil time. 

11 So let it be. In God's own might 

We gird us for the coming fight, 

And, strong in Him whose cause is ours 

In conflict with unholy powers, 

We grasp the weapons He has given — 

The Light, and Truth, and Love of Heaven." 



CHAPTER X. 

THE KALEIDOSCOPE CHANGES. 

"All earthly love is as a thread of gold 
Most fair, but what the touch of time may sever; 

But His, a cable sure, of strength untold — 
Oh, His love lasteth ever! 

And this great love He will on thee bestow, 
The fulness of His grace to thee make known, 

Earnests of glory grant thee here below, 
If thou wilt be His own." 

^GAIN the scene changes. Business need- 
ing my attention in New Hampshire, I 
returned in the spring to my old home in 
Amherst. Soon I detected the fact that 
my friend and attorney had a deeper interest in me 
than mere business relations warranted. I knew 
the teaching of the Bible on the subject of marriage. 
I knew two could not " walk together except they 
were agreed," and I gave much prayerful considera- 
tion to the subject. One day the son came in and 
asked for a little private conversation with me. 
Never did lover plead more tenderly and earnestly 





Charles Richardson. 



THE KALEIDOSCOPE CHANGES. 145 

for himself than did this son for his father. While 
we were in the midst of this, the daughter came in, 
a girl not yet in her teens, with her childish plea for 
me not to go away from Amherst any more ? The 
question naturally arose in my heart, whether or 
not I was to take these as indications of God's will 
for me. As I refer to my diary I find how deeply 
and prayerfully my mind was exercised on the sub- 
ject, and how earnest and sincere were my desires 
that I might know the path of duty, and take no 
step which would not honor my God and Savior. 

I shall never forget the night after the word of 
assent had passed my lips — the tears, the prayers, 
yea, the agony of my soul, as I feared I had mis- 
taken the path of duty. Early in the morning I 
sought my friend's home to ask release from the 
word spoken. My friend saw me approaching; he 
noted my tear-stained face, and as he opened the 
door took my hand, saying : " You have not slept. 
I know for what you have come, and I fully release 
you. I have no wish to add to the sorrows of your 
life." At that moment his true nobility of soul 
shone out as I had never seen it before, and my 
previous decision was not rescinded, but rather con- 
firmed. After a few months the responsibilities of 
a wife and mother in a new home, rested upon me ; 
and never did an own son and daughter get nearer 



146 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

to a mothers heart than did this son and daughter 
to mine ; and my daughter they took to their hearts 
and treated in every respect as a sister. 

But clouds overspread the fairest skies, and in 
time gathered about us. Circumstances over which 
we had no control took the son from college to 
California. Sad, indeed, were our hearts to part 
from one so tenderly beloved. At this time my 
constitution, hitherto considered so strong, seemed 
almost to give way under the strain of the events of 
the past two or three years, and I was confined to a 
sick bed for many weeks, but God mercifully restored 
me. Much of sadness came into my life, but the 
power of God was with me to sustain, and to inspire 
in my heart a love for souls. Loved ones were 
called from earth away, among them dear Brother 
Chapman, who had been such a help and comfort to 
me in the dark days of the war. He exchanged 
earth for heaven June 29, 1867. My child left home 
for Tilton Seminary, leaving my mother heart 
lonely, but life's duties were before me, and the 
Spirit of God continually prompted me to care for 
the erring, comfort the sorrowing, and " use hospi- 
tality without grudging " in my home. As I recall 
the past, tears of gratitude will flow for all His 
mercies. My family was very large much of the 
time, having not only boarders, but guests beneath 



THE KALEIDOSCOPE CHANGES. 147 

my roof; and though I had sweet companships, 
heard good gospel preaching, and had a precious 
class in the Sabbath school, every member of which 
was dear to my heart, I yet sighed for the freedom 
and enthusiasm of my own prayer meetings and 
class meetings. In my diary, Thanksgiving day, 
1867, I find this record : " Dr. D. gave us a grand 
sermon, showing how the former days were not 
better than these. Perhaps they are not ; and yet I 
often wish we were more like the primitive Chris- 
tians ; had less formality and more zeal." Decem- 
ber 2, of the same year, I find the following : " My 
child 17 years old to-day; and she has not yet 
decided for Christ. Can it be possible?" How 
my heart yearned in those days for the salvation of 
the young in Amherst. I often wept " between the 
porch and the altar," and wrote letters, or spoke 
personally to many of them. May I meet them at 
God's right hand. 

In May, 1869, I was privileged to visit dear 
friends in Brooklyn. Here I heard much blessed 
preaching, and had the great joy of attending some 
of Dr. and Mrs. Palmer's meetings for the promo- 
tion of holiness. At the latter I was much impressed 
by some of the experiences given, particularly one 
from a converted Catholic lady. God's guiding 
Hand never seemed so beautiful to me before, and 



148 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

my heart was filled with thanksgiving to Him for 
all the way He had led me. 

In 1870, at the Camp Meeting at Hamilton, I re- 
ceived a fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit. I had 
gone there with an intense longing to be afresh 
" filled with all the fulness of God," and on my 
knees was pleading and agonizing before God, that 
He would meet my soul in wondrous blessing, that 
I might return to my home better fitted for the 
work. What tests He gave me, each one harder 
than the preceding ; but He helped me to yield ; and 
when I was enabled to say, as test after test was 
presented, " Yes, Lord, anything, anything, only fill 
me with Thyself," He gloriously met me and filled 
my soul. I knew it was His work. I knew He 
filled me with His own blessed Holy Spirit. The 
spiritual gained the ascendency over the physical, 
and while my soul was filled with "joy unspeakable 
and full of glory," my body was as weak as an in- 
fant's, and I could neither stand nor walk. I re- 
turned home almost immediately, as I had promised 
the Lord when my soul said, "yes" to Him on the 
camp ground. 

I called on several people, whose names were 
clearly presented to me, to try to induce them to 
attend the meeting at Asbury Grove, for I longed 
that some of my brethren and sisters in Christ 



THE KALEIDOSCOPE CHANGES. 149 

should know of the blessing of perfect love in their 
own experience. My heart specially yearned for 
some of our own ministers. I could not persuade 
any of them to go, but I kept my covenant with my 
God, and He greatly blessed my soul. 

In 1872, I recorded joyfully that union meetings 
were held for the first time in Amherst, during the 
week of prayer. 

March 28th, I wrote : " What a class meeting ! 
eighteen present, and of this number only three who 
met in class eight months ago. Dear Lord, speak 
more powerfully to these hearts. We shall soon 
have to divide the class, I trust. Oh, for still greater 
tokens for good. Lord, help those of us who are old 
in Christian experience to be holy in life." 

As I remember the ups and downs of our little 
church, how sometimes its doors would be closed for 
months at a time, I can imagine the gratitude that 
filled my heart as I penned the above lines. 

On Saturday, November 9th, 1872, my husband 
and myself started for San Francisco, to visit his 
son. For years I had yearned to see father and son 
look each other in the face, and take each other by 
the hand. We stopped one day at New Haven, and 
also spent a day with Rev. Mr. Guiscard, an English 
friend of ours, whose father had died not long before 
at Salt Lake City. Taking the Pennsylvania Cen- 



150 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

tral Railroad, we were soon steaming away to Chi- 
cago. Mrs. John W. Young, No. 3, wife of a son of 
Brigham Young, was in the car with us. She had a 
bright, pretty young English girl with her as nurse 
maid, whom I warned to be careful not to become 
Mrs. Young, No. 4. 

Oh, the wonderful works of God, as we saw them 
displayed in the mountains, rocks, and canons that 
we saw as we pursued our journey. At times my 
eyes were dim with tears, and I felt as I did when 
viewing Niagara. How wonderfully the goodness 
and wisdom of God were unfolded to me at every 
turn. I wondered people could quietly keep their 
seats, as through the deep canons and up the 
steep mountains we made our way. Rounding 
" Cape Horn," so called, we asked for the train 
to stop, that we might leave the cars, and get 
a better view of the beautiful scenery. Some of the 
gentlemen, who were sitting with their feet elevated 
in the air, reading the " New York Sun," were quite 
indignant that we ladies had dared venture such a 
bold request. It was granted, and we were filled 
and thrilled with scenery, that in grandeur surpassed 
all I had ever seen. 

My husband desired to stop at Salt Lake City 
and pay a visit to his old friend, Elder Little. At 
Ogden we found the train had left, butJJohn W . 



THE KALEIDOSCOPE CHANGES. 151 

Young kindly had a passenger car attached to the 
freight train, and we pursued our journey. 

We reached the Mormon Hotel at one o'clock a. 
m. Elder Smith was called up, and it was a singular 
sight to see the two men meet and greet each other 
after an absence of years, and to note the contrast 
in their personal appearance. 

In the morning at breakfast, the newcomers were 
carefully scrutinized. Soon the conversation turned 
on their peculiar institutions, and when asked what 
I thought, I expressed my mind with considerable 
freedom. I have wondered since, how I dared thus 
to u beard the lion in his den." God gave me cour- 
age to be fearless and free in expressing my con- 
victions. 

Elder Smith introduced us to the Legislature, 
then in session, showed us the Tithing House, the 
Tabernacle, and the new Temple, then in process of 
erection, etc. On my inquiry as to the needs of so 
deep a cellar for the Temple, I was informed it was 
to contain a large laver, or basin, which was to be 
upheld by eight stone oxen; and this font was to 
be used in baptizing people for the dead. I sus- 
pected at once that it was a money making affair. I 
waited my time, and after a little more sight seeing 
and introductions to some fat Englishmen, I said: 

" Elder Little, will not people be required to pay 



152 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

for these baptizings for the dead?" "Certainly," 
was the reply. a Will it not require a good many 
elders to do the baptizing ? " was my next inquiry. 
" Yes," said the elder. " Mormonism is to be the 
religion by and by, and there will be a good many 
baptisms for the dead." My next question was: 
" What is it to be baptized for the dead ? " " What, 
you a Bible student, and not know what it means to 
be baptized for the dead ? Why, somebody was bap- 
tized for your old Queen Bess, the other day." Then 
my time came, and I said : " Elder Little, you were 
brought up in New England, and I don't believe 
that you, or the Englishmen who heard the sound of 
the church going bell from early boyhood, believe 
that stuff you have been talking any more than I do. 
It is a money making business. You send out your 
missionaries to some country not already priest- 
ridden, and gather the poor, ignorant people together 
and bring them here to give you a good, fat living." 
The look of astonishment on his face I can not even 
begin to describe. I think my husband was about 
as much astonished as the elder, by the vigorous 
grip he gave my arm. When we were alone, he 
said : " It is fortunate for us there is a railroad from 
this place, for if there were not, I don't believe I 
should get you away from here alive." 

I began to be almost frightened at my own te- 



THE KALEIDOSCOPE CHANGES. 153 

merity, and at dinner told my husband I thought we 
had better be on our way. He was glad to go for he 
did not care to spend another night in the place. I 
had found on inquiry for Bro. Guiscard's father, that 
they disclaimed any such person ever having been 
there, though Bro. G. had received a letter from 
them bearing intelligence of his father's death, stat- 
ing that he left his money to the church, and also a 
book of genealogy of the Guiscards, which the father 
was preparing for the press but had not completed. 
When the Elder came in my husband called for 
his bill. As he understood by this that we were 
about to leave, he said to me : " What are you going 
to tell the people about us when you get home ? " 
" I shall tell the truth, sir." "And if they ask you 
how we treated you, what shall you say ? Have we 
treated you well, or not? " " Yes, and no," I replied. 
"What do you mean by that?" said the Elder. " I 
mean yes, you have kindly paid us many attentions 
in showing us about the place, for which we feel 
indebted to you ; but I have been in your house two 
days and two nights, and Mrs. Little proper is under 
the same roof. She was reared less than thirty miles 
from my home in Hillsboro county, New Hamp- 
shire, and has not even come to speak to me. I 
tried to speak to Mrs. Little, No. 2, but she dodged 
behind the clothes she was hanging out. The hired 



154 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

girl is the head of the house. I was born in 
England; and if even a dog from Cambridgeshire 
came to my home I should want to pat him." 
" Haven't you seen Eliza?" u No, sir; and I have 
come to the conclusion that she feels she has lost 
her womanhood so far that she has no wish to see 
me, or else that she is so i under your thumb ' that 
you will not let her see me." His eyes flashed fire 
as he said : " I should like to have you to train for 
six weeks." " There would be a funeral before the 
end of that time," was my reply; and again my 
husband wondered if he should be able to get that 
plain spoken woman out of Mormondom alive. We 
decided not to wait for the Little carriage to take us 
to the station, but procured one ourselves, and we 
were seated in the car when the Elder drove up 
quite stirred that we had not waited for his convey- 
ance. He came into the car and expressed consider- 
able dissatisfaction that we had not waited for his 
carriage, seeming quite disposed to have an angry 
altercation with me. My husband said afterward 
that though he was no coward, he trembled lest we 
should be mobbed before we left the train. All 
fear, however, was taken from me, and I answered as 
the Spirit gave me utterance. At last the bell rang, 
and my combatant left the train. A sigh of relief 
escaped by husband, when lo ! another smooth-faced 



THE KALEIDOSCOPE CHANGES. 155 

Mormon came and sat down in front of us, saying : 
u Pardon me, madame, but I would like to disabuse 
your mind of some prejudices you evidently enter- 
tain toward the Mormon religion. Elder Little is 
somewhat hasty and impulsive in his manner, I 
admit ; but will you allow me to say I think you 
have been somewhat unjust in your remarks ! " a If 
so," I answered, " I shall be glad to be corrected. I 
am open to conviction, and if you can show me one 
redeeming feature in Mormonism I shall be glad to 
see it.-' " You remarked," said he, u that you could 
tell a Mormon as far as you could see him ; for he 
had lost all of the Divine, and most of the human, 
and there was not much but the animal left." " I 
say so now, sir." " You also assailed a plurality of 
wives," he replied. " Yes, sir ; I did. I believe that 
under this gospel dispensation no man has a right to 
more than one wife at a time, and that more than 
that is productive of misery to somebody." There 
again you are mistaken. Our inspectors that go 
into the different families say that they find more 
dissatisfaction in the families where there is but one 
wife than in those where there is more than one." 
"" In that case it is doubtless because the man alone 
has become Mormonized, and is dissatisfied that his 
wife isn't willing he should take another, while she 
is dissatisfied lest he should do so. So both would 



156 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

be dissatisfied. While in a family where there is a 
plurality, the man at least would be satisfied," was 
my reply. " You are wrong," he answered. " I 
have three wives ; my first wife gave me the others." 
Was I wicked to reply impulsively : " The more 
fool she, for doing such a thing ! " ; ' Oh, no," said 
my Mormon friend, u for she knows that in propor- 
tion as she is self-sacrificing here, and admits of a 
large family, the larger will be the realm over which 
she will reign in the next world." I hope it was 
only righteous indignation that made my blood hot, 
as I said : " Sir, would you have me believe this 
ridiculous nonsense ? Would our Blessed Savior, so 
kind and loving to woman when on earth, have her 
crush out all the tender love of her heart, and do 
violence to all the instincts of wifehood and mother- 
hood, in order that she may reign over a larger realm 
in another world ? I should think any woman would 
be content with a smaller sphere in the future life 
for the sake of a little comfort and satisfaction in 
this." It is impossible for me to remember all I 
did say, but I know God helped me to denounce the 
whole cursed system in no measured terms; and I 
should have done it had I known they would take 
my life the next moment. I think this very man, 
Elder Lee, was afterward hung for participation in 
the Mountain Meadow massacre. Justice sometimes 



THE KALEIDOSCOPE CHANGES. 157 

slumbers long, but it will not slumber always, and 
did not in this case. My husband really feared we 
should be mobbed when we reached Ogden, for there 
had been hisses and groans heard in the cars, as well 
as applause, and he knew not what proportion of the 
occupants of the cars were Mormons. Instead of a 
mob, I was scarcely on the platform before a fine 
looking woman rushed to me, and threw her arms 
around me as she exclaimed, with the tears stream- 
ing down her face : " Thank God I have lived to see 
the day when a woman dare tell a Mormon Elder the 
truth." She was one who had escaped from their 
degrading thralldom. 

I have sometimes regretted that I did not, on my 
return home, make opportunity to expose publicly 
the iniquity of Mormonism, and so add the weight 
of my influence, small though it be, to that of others 
who were endeavoring to let in the light upon the 
whole abominable system, which is such a shame 
and blot upon our American civilization, and such a 
degradation of womanhood. I want to say here to 
any of my readers who may think Mormonism is 
dead, that it is not dead — not even sleeping; — but 
has simply changed its base. 

The year previous, 1871, Kev, J. S. Inskip, T. E. 
Searles, and W. H. Boole were, by resolution of the 
New York East Conference, granted leave of absence 



158 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

to visit the Pacific coast, to engage in special evan- 
gelistic services in California and elsewhere. The 
National Camp Meeting Association, of which these 
brethren were members, had received an earnest 
invitation from Methodist churches in California, to 
bring its big tent, an institution large as Barnum's 
Circus tent, capable of seating nearly three thousand 
people, and set it up on the plazas of their cities, 
and there " open batteries " for the salvation of 
souls ; hence the Conference resolutions. 

This big tent was set up in Salt Lake City, and 
Bro. Boole feeling convinced that God was calling 
him to preach against Mormonism, the brethren who 
had not previously given consent, were led to do so, 
and he " bearded the lion in his den ; " and though 
it looked as if these fearless evangelists would be 
torn in pieces by the howling advocates of Mormon- 
ism, yet the truth prevailed, the Mormons were con- 
quered, and feeling that their work was done, they 
moved on to other fields. 

Soon a telegram reached us saying the son was 
on the way to meet us. What a greeting was that. 
The car soon filled with lawyers, judges, fine looking 
people, but I never saw so little gentlemanly dignity 
in people of position before. The scenery all about 
us was grand and beautiful ; but man, made in the 
image of God, how debased. I was glad when we 



THE KALEIDOSCOPE CHANGES. 159 

arrived in San Francisco, with not a hair of our 
heads harmed. " Bless the Lord, my soul," was 
the language of my heart. The next six months 
were spent in San Francisco. While there I visited 
the famous Geysers, and again had occasion to 
rejoice that u My Father made them all." I was 
greatly distressed at the free use of wine at some 
tables at which I sat, well knowing the tendency 
and end of such habits. Since that day how my 
heart ached at the sad deterioration in every thing 
good, and the no less sad end of some whom I would 
then fain have led to see the folly of the path in 
which they were treading. The Sabbath desecration 
was very painful to me, and connected with this was 
the cruelty to horses, which were so overburdened 
by the loads of pleasure seekers they were com- 
pelled to carry. I well remember one poor horse 
which, after being driven forty miles, fell dead. 
The utter recklessness of the stock brokers appalled 
me. Human life seemed of but little value. 

The Christian people, as far as I mingled with 
them, seemed very much in earnest, and very 
devoted. Although I attended several of the 
churches in the city, I attended principally the 
Howard Street Methodist, where I greatly enjoyed 
the ministrations of Dr. Jewell. The prayer and 
class meetings were very precious, and I became 



160 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

acquainted with some choice souls. The Chinese 
Mission, under care of Dr. Gibson, was an object of 
great interest to me. While we were there a China- 
man came to Dr. G. one day demanding his 
" woman," who, he said, had left him, and was at 
the Mission. Dr. G. told him he could not have her. 
He signified to Dr. G. that the woman was his prop- 
erty ; he had bought and paid for her. Dr. G. told 
him the time was past when women could be bought 
and sold in this country, and at last he was forced 
to leave without her. 

Just before we arrived in San Francisco, a vessel 
came into port having on board seven hundred 
Chinese women, who were to be landed for immoral 
purposes. Dr. Gibson made such a stir about it that 
they were never landed, but returned to their own 
country — all save one poor woman, who, before 
they knew they were to be returned, jumped into 
the sea, deeming the bottom of the ocean preferable 
to the life she saw before her. 

Tuesday, May 13, 1873, I find this record in my 
journal : " Thank God we are at last started for 
home." I was happy indeed when we set our faces 
toward home. We found the scenery on the Cen- 
tral Pacific Railroad very fine. I found opportuni- 
ties for way- side service all the way along. 

When we had been four days on our journey the 



THE KALEIDOSCOPE CHANGES. 161 

cars ran off the track, and though three cars were 
smashed, our lives were mercifully preserved. We 
spent a day in Chicago and two days in Montreal, 
visiting an English friend at Granby, just after leav- 
ing Montreal. We reached our dear Amherst home 
the 26th of May, and how thankful I was to find my 
dear ones well, and to know a God of love was still 
caring for his Israel in that place ; though my joy 
was mingled with sadness at the loss of dear sister 
McClure, whose death, caused by exhaustion and ex- 
posure in helping in preparations for a i; Church 
Festival," had taken place during my absence. 
" Church Festivals ! " I have come to dread the 
sound of a " Church Festival," and to regard them 
as devices of the devil. For years after we gave up 
the good, old English tea meetings and introduced 
the American " Church Festivals," I tried to find 
some substitute for them, or some manner of con- 
ducting them which would not be offensive to God, 
and yet would attract the people, and draw money 
from their pockets, for it was money we wanted. 
I tried to sanctify the drama, and many a scene in 
the Old Testament have I dramatized for use at such 
times. Hearing one day that a minister of the Gos- 
pel said I had done more to create a love for the 
dramatic in the young people than any one else in 
the place, I began to think more seriously of the 



162 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

matter, and finally came to the conclusion that God 
wanted us to pay our minister as we did our doctor, 
or any of our other debts. A strong pressure was 
brought to bear upon me to revoke my decision ; for 
did I not want preaching in our little church, and 
how else were we to raise the money ? 

I want to record here one circumstance which 
helped me to the above decision. One morning a 
minister, one of our denomination, came to see me, 
and reason with me with regard to my influence, in 
sanctioning and helping in these " Festivals," 
" Fairs," etc. He talked with me kindly, lovingly ; 
and at last we knelt down and prayed about it. The 
whole thing looked so different to me from what it 
had before, that I wept before God as I thought how 
I had dishonored Him, and on my knees I promised 
Him I would renounce it all. Since that day I have 
been denounced for my " one sidedness,'- my u fanat- 
icism," my " sanctimoniousness ; " but God has 
given me grace to stand firm. And oh, that the 
same Blessed Holy Spirit that opened my eyes, and 
helped me to be true to my convictions, might reveal 
to my brethren and sisters in Christ how God dis- 
honoring it is for His church to resort to such means 
as are used in many of our churches at the present 
day, for replenishing; the treasury of the Lord. No 
wonder unbelievers point the finger of scorn at us — 



THE KALEIDOSCOPE CHANGES. 163 

no wonder our young people are more fond of frivol- 
ity and show than they are of sacred things — no 
wonder we see so little of the power of God in the 
church, in the conversion of sinners and sanctifica- 
tion of believers. We are running altogether too 
much on the amusement line, and too little on the 
line of full salvation. There is money enough in the 
coffers of Christians to-day to carry on the Lord's 
work, if it were only consecrated to God, without 
resorting to all sorts of unholy devices for drawing 
money from the ungodly. 

" On the first day of the week let every one of 
you lay by him in store as God hath prospered him," 
is as good a rule for Christians to-day as in Paul's 
day. My soul is stirred to its very depths as I know 
of ministers among us, who not only encourage but 
also take part in these things ; on my knees before 
God I have wept and prayed that they might see 
what they are doing ; and at the word of the Lord I 
have taken my pen, and written to some of them 
words of loving expostulation and entreaty. God 
grant they may not only read but heed those words. 

I've never got away from our good, old English 
Methodist ways of doing. We paid a penny a week 
each, and that went toward helping our minister. 
Then when we received our class ticket we paid six- 
pence, or a shilling, or whatever we felt led to do, as 



164 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

the Lord had prospered us ; and these two, the penny 
a week and the ticket money, with a collection once 
a quarter, made up the minister's salary. If there 
were any poor or widows among us, those of us who 
could do so always said : u I will pay such an one's 
ticket." Our giving was just as much an act of wor- 
ship as our singing or oar praying. God always did 
and always will love a cheerful giver. 

There are waste places in New Hampshire where 
no church bell is heard, no church edifice seen; or if 
seen, its doors are closed for lack of funds. And 
yet we hear of banquets where the menu numbers 
more courses than days in the week ; of orchestras 
and hall decorations for dances and other purposes, 
the expense of which runs up into the thousands ; 
and these patronized and supported not by the 
ungodly alone, but by professing Christians. But 
there is no money to carry on work and support mis- 
sion rooms for the purpose of saving those who feel 
shut out from the churches, and who have come to 
believe that the religion of the day is one of kid 
gloves, of silk and velvet, and — shams. My soul 
gets stirred, even as did Paul's, " when he saw the 
whole city given to idolatry." We are " exalted to 
heaven" in point of privilege. Is it true that we 
are to be " cast down to hell " because of our rejec- 
tion of light and truth, because we prefer the ways 



THE KALEIDOSCOPE CHANGES. 165 

of this corrupt and sinful generation to God's ways ? 
When I remember how our blessed Jesus wept over 
Jerusalem, it seems to me that if tears could fall in 
heaven, He would weep over our churches in New 
England to-day. 

The blessed Lord, when He delineated the com- 
ing judgment, said that before Him should be gath- 
ered all nations, and He would separate them one 
from another, as the shepherd divideth the sheep 
from the goats. And how would He address them ? 
u Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the king- 
dom prepared for you from the foundation of the 
world, for I was an hungered, thirsty, a stranger, 
naked, sick, in prison, and ye supplied the wants of 
your Lord, who suffered in the persons of His lowly, 
needy followers, with broom drills, wish-bone par- 
ties, rainbow suppers, pink suppers, crazy suppers, 
cob-web socials, and hammer and needle entertain- 
ments ? '' No ! no ! It was : u Ye gave me meat ; 
ye gave me drink ; ye took me in ; ye clothed me ; 
ye visited me ; ye came unto me." We are sur- 
rounded by hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, prison- 
bound souls. The mission of the church is to these. 
Her work is to evangelize the world. Sinners are 
not won for the kingdom by any of these devices. 
Souls are never drawn to Christ by measures whicli 
He does not approve. They may be drawn to enter- 



166 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

tainments, to festivals, to all that I have endeavored 
to depict as deforming the church of God to-day, but 
not to Christ; because these methods are in direct 
opposition to the teachings of the Holy Bible. 

In these last few months, one thought has burned 
itself into my very soul. That thought is the 
responsibility that rests upon Christian men and 
women. Professing to be a follower of Jesus, I say 
to myself again and again : " How near do I come 
to the model ? " I believe the great problems that 
loom up before us would soon be solved were a halt 
called all through the Evangelical churches of this 
land, and a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer 
observed — prayer that takes no denial ; persevering 
prayer, till the windows of heaven open and showers 
of conviction fall upon the people. How much this 
is needed in the church and out of the church. 
Ministers and their churches, politicians and their 
parties — for do not too many of our ministers tone 
down the truths of the gospel lest they should dis- 
please their people, and does not party outstrip 
principle at the present day? — all need this spirit 
of conviction. Oh ! what a need that the old Gos- 
pel be read and read again, especially such portions 
as the tenth of St. Matthew. When pastors and 
people take the dear Christ as the model, then the 
heart will be reached, and not simply the ear 



THE KALEIDOSCOPE CHANGES. 167 

pleased. Oh ! for a baptism of old time power, that 
brings us to our knees and makes us truly Christ 
like in our love for the suffering;, sinning ones of 
earth. Well do I remember a poor, erring sister 
who had sinned against God and one who was dear 
as life to me, as well. I thought it right to show 
proper resentment, or righteous indignation, as I 
deemed it. After crossing the Atlantic Ocean, and 
being separated from her for five years, the sight of 
her so affected me that I turned from her without 
speaking, or showing her in any way that I forgave 
her, and again I put three thousand miles between 
us. All this my Heavenly Father saw, and in His 
great love sent a flood of conviction upon my soul 
which had the effect He designed. It came upon 
me as I was repeating the " Lord's Prayer " at the 
close of family worship. As I prayed the petition* 
"And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debt- 
ors," the Holy Spirit said to me : " What ! ask God 
to forgive you as you forgive Mary, over the sea ? "" 
Can I ever forget the revealings of those moments — 
the keen conviction, the deep sadness of my contrite 
heart, as I exclaimed : " Yes, Lord, as I forgive her; 
for here and now I do forgive all, all." Then God's 
peace like a river flowed into my poor soul, divinely 
enriched in a moment, and I sat down and wrote 
her, sending her also a little pecuniary help, which I 



168 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

well knew she needed. Before long, such a contrite 
letter as came in reply, telling of the agony, the 
remorse, the yearnings for the love and friendship 
of the years gone by, that I felt I had my reward. 
Not many letters passed between us, before news 
came that Mary, the erring, the penitent one, had 
passed to her long home. Tears of gratitude filled 
my eyes and thanksgiving my heart that I had not 
been left to nurse my wrath to the end. " To obey 
is better than sacrifice, and to hearken, than the fat 
of rams.'' Again my soul cries out for a spirit of 
conviction to come upon the people. Dear fellow 
travelers Zionward, let us repent and do our first 
works. ''Come out from among them, and be ye 
separate ; " separate from all complicity with evil. 
Is not love of the world the weight which is drag- 
ging down our churches ? Is it not too sadly true 
that it is not so much how we shall glorify God and 
save sinners as how we shall increase the popularity of 
our church? And while all this is going on around 
us, souls are perishing, and more than one-half of 
earth's teeming millions are without Christ. " Shall 
I not visit for these things? saith the Lord." 



CHAPTER XL 

THE GREAT COMMISSION. 

" Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, 
and I will give you rest."— Matt. 11 : 28. 

" Go ye into all the world and preach the glad tidings to 
every creature." — Mark 16 : 15. 

" List! as, with weary, faltering feet, 
We stumble through each year, 
And see, without, upon the street, 
Scenes shifting, wild and drear, 
A voice, untuned to sin and strife, 
Revives each languid breast : 
1 Ye who are burdened — tired of life, 
Come unto Me, and rest.' 

But hark ! while words of comfort drop 

In ears distraught with woe, 
He stands upon the mountain top 

And bids the rested — Go! 
Earth's weary millions, craving rest, 

Untaught of Him, despair ; 
May we, with Christ-like tenderness, 

Go preach Him everywhere." 




170 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

E ARE far more ready to accept Christ's 
" Come," than His " Go." The prom- 
ises sound sweeter in our ears than the 
commands ; still, if we have accepted 
His " Come," and know the joys of His salvation, we 
are included in the " Great Commission," and His 
command to " Go," rests upon us. No child of God 
is excepted. The " ye " is inclusive of every saved 
child of God. There is no limit to the ground to be 
covered. It is " all the world." There is no limit 
to the number of people to be reached. It is u every 
creature." God has no other use for the church 
than the evangelization of the world ; and when she 
steps down and out of the path God has marked out 
for her, and trails her fair garments in the dust, all 
God has for her to do is to " repent, and do her first 
work," else He " will remove her candlestick out of 
its place." One has truthfully said : " The Spirit 
of God, is the very Spirit of Missions." When a 
church is lacking in the missionary spirit, it is proof 
positive that that church needs a fresh baptism of 
the Holy Ghost. 

I thank God that the old missionary spirit of my 
girlhood has never left me, though at times the 
flame burned more brightly than at others ; and 
there were days when, in my Amherst home, my 
soul was so burdened, and my yearnings so great T 



THE GREAT COMMISSION. 171 

for the salvation of precious souls, and that we might 
have so much of the Spirit of Christ that some one 
among us would offer himself or herself for the for- 
eign field, that I could hardly attend to my house- 
hold duties. 

In the last part of 1874, under the pastorate of 
Brother J. M. Bean, the cloud of mercy began to 
break, souls were convicted and some truly con- 
verted. How hard the dear brother did work. He 
did not spare either time or strength in the service 
of the Master he loved. I find in my diary written 
at that time the following record : " October 25, 
1874. Thank God for this day. Bro. B. preached a 
grand sermon on 4 Kepentance and the Judgment of 
the Great Day.' Communion, but no love feast. 
But this evening we had c Wine on the lees, well re- 
fined.' Bro. Cilley, the Presiding Elder, was with 
us, and nearly all the church were forward for a 
deeper work of grace in the heart. 2Gth. Thank 
God, this eve quite a number were at the prayer 
meeting. An excellent spirit prevailed. The dear 
Lord is here with His Spirit. Oh, that He may not 
be grieved away. 28th. A solemn stillness per- 
vaded the meeting this evening, as Brother Cilley 
preached from the text : ' The Master is come and 
calleth for thee.' Nearly all the church on their 
knees. December 1. Thank God I have lived to 



172 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

see this day. A meeting in the Congregational 
Chapel, the Methodist Salvation Hymns sung, and 
permission given for any one to take part in the 
meeting. I could but respond, Praise the Lord. 
December 9. Bless God, the mercy clouds are drop- 
ping. Some few have found Christ. 17th. Glory 
be to God, fifteen at class, among them three new 
ones. Oh, what hath God wrought! He is bring- 
ing precious ones into His fold. Oh, that many, 
many, may come and be saved." 

So my heart was indeed made glad, in a revival 
of God's work and the salvation of precious souls, 
and I closed the year with a song of thanksgiving 
and praise to God. During that year I was greatly 
blessed in giving up some needless ornaments, that 
the proceeds might be devoted to helping on the 
work of the Lord in building a new chapel at my old 
Downham home across the water, and also in build- 
ing a church nearer home. The gift for the latter 
was returned to me later, as the project was given 
up ; and I am sure the blessing returned into my 
own bosom from my English home a thousand fold. 
I believe that if Christians would give up the really 
needless things upon which so much time and money 
are spent, and devote the proceeds of their self-denial 
to the work of the Lord, there would not be such a 
deficit in the Lord's treasury. I give extracts from 



THE GREAT COMMISSION. 173 

a letter received from Downham, in receipt of my 
little gift. 

Downham, Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire, 
January 20, 1877. 

Dear Madam — I am requested by the Wesleyan 
friends of Downham to let you know we received 
the sum you so kindly sent toward the proposed 
new chapel. A builder has contracted to build it 
complete in six weeks, so we hope by the blessing 
of God we shall have a nice, warm, comfortable 
place in which to worship. It is greatly needed. We 
have been worshiping in a carpenter shop, which is 
very cold and uncomfortable. The reason of our 
long delay in building was because there was dim" 
culty in obtaining a clear title to the land, and again 
it took a long time to get it enfranchised. Now, I 
am happy to say, everything is ready ; we have cir- 
culars printed to send away to our friends to raise a 
little money, as we are all poor people. The rich 
here don't believe Jesus Christ died for the sins of 
the whole world, so we don't expect much from 
them. I shall be very glad to have a letter from 
you to read to the friends at the new chapel. Mrs. 
Cole let us see your letter, which we were very glad 
to read, and many were the blessings pronounced 
upon you, although thousands of miles away. 

a I must now make you sensible who is the writer 
of this letter. I am the son of Thomas Pate. My 
mother's maiden name was Esther Russell, the 
mother of fourteen children. I well remember your 



174 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

teaching in the old Sabbath School in Downham 
Chapel. The seed that was sown there was not lost. 
We hope to see a good Wesleyan cause flourishing 
in little Downham. The circuit generally seems to 
be awakened out of sleep. There have been many 
additions made to the churches this last quarter. 
All the friends send their love to you, and hope to 
meet you in heaven, if no more on earth. 

" I now conclude, with many thanks for your 
kind donation. Believe me. 

" Yours respectfully, 

"Thomas Pate, Jk." 

I shed tears of joy and gratitude over this letter 
of my old time Sabbath School scholar, as I had 
over a previous one received from him acknowledg- 
ing the receipt of a part of my donation. A letter 
received later gave a delightful account of the dedi- 
cation services at the new chapel, and informed me 
that so desirous were some of my friends to possess 
a bit of the American gold which I had sent that 
they purchased it at a premium. 

No missionary has as yet gone from Amherst, but 
in 1879 we organized an auxiliary to the Woman's 
Foreign Missionary Society in our little church. I 
find recorded a list of life members, one each year 
for five years, besides the regular membership of 
seventeen. We had also a children's missionary 
organization called the " Busy Bees," which did 



THE GREAT COMMISSION. 175 

good work. In after years its name was changed to 
" Lilies of the Valley." God honored our work. 
He sent us a helper for the children in an unlooked 
for manner. 

On one of my missionary trips, passing through 
Littleton to Groveton Camp Meeting, I met after 
forty-four years one who had met in class with me 
on the other side of the ocean. I spent a night with 
the family on the return trip, and met with the old- 
est daughter, who was something of an invalid, and 
at that time under the spell of a powerful tempta- 
tion. Her manner toward me was not very cordial. 
I saw and felt it, and prayed for wisdom. As the 
day advanced, calling her by name, I told her I had 
chosen her for my companion for the night. She 
demurred. I prayed and gently insisted. After we 
had retired, I was led to recount to her God's care 
and loving kindness to me since I left England. It 
seemed to open her heart, and she told how hard 
and dark life seemed to her for the past few months, 
and how she was meditating an escape from it that 
very night. I sprang up saying : " If I were indulg- 
ing in such a thought as that, I would not dare close 
my eyes to sleep to-night." God helped me to be a 
help to his tried, young disciple, and at last, with 
more calmness and a greater degree of acquiescence 
in God's will for her, she fell asleep. From this 



176 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

time our souls were knit together, even as the souls 
of David and Jonathan. After a little she came to 
my home, as I thought the change would be benefi 
cial to her health. She was a lovely worker among 
the children, taking charge of the children's mission 
band, leading them in prayer and song, and in 
service for Jesus. At my suggestion they took a 
little girl to educate in the school in Moradabad, 
India, giving this little girl the name of Lily Am- 
herst. The dear children made a patch- work quilt, 
as we thought they would be more interested if their 
fingers were employed, and on each white square 
was a text of Scripture. Strange to say, when the 
squares were collected to be put together in the 
quilt, only one text was duplicated. This quilt was 
sent to our little girl in Moradabad. The letters 
received from this far away child, whom we were 
seeking to train for Christ, were of great interest to 
us all. Two of them are given below : 

" Moradabad, India, May, 1883. 

"My Dear Lady — I have received and read your 
letter with much pleasure, and thank you for so 
kindly writing to me, and for your love to me, whom 
you have never seen. The girls in my class were 
much pleased, too, on hearing your letter read. I 
send a letter for the little band of girls who are 
helping toward my support. God bless you. I 
remain, "Your grateful little girl, 

" Hira — Lily." 



THE GREAT COMMISSION. 177 

"My Dear Little Supporters: — The letters 
you sent me I received last Friday, while in school, 
and I now thank you for them, and tell you that the 
reading of each of those dear letters afforded me, 
and all my classmates, very much pleasure. I am 
so grateful to you for the love you express toward 
me, even though you have not seen me. I am very 
happy here, and try to improve myself in my stud- 
ies. I want much to see you all, and never forget 
to pray that God will bless and help you. I am 
writing this just after our breakfast. These are the 
books I am learning from in school : geography, 
history of India, Urdu grammar, English first reader, 
arithmetic, compound division, and catechism. I 
also write English and Urdu copies. The cards you 
sent I was very pleased to get. Our school begins 
at six and is over at eleven. Our Sunday school 
begins at the same time and closes about half past 
eight. I like to go and sing there. On Saturday 
evening at six we all have a singing lesson. On 
Thursday afternoon at four we have all our class 
meetings. A. Moulsi (Mahommedan teacher) teaches 
all the Urdu in school. Miss Seymour and Miss 

the English, and Esther the arithmetic. 

Besides Esther there are two other teachers, Lizzie 
and Kathrina. It is very hot here. These are some 
of the fruits we can get in India : Melons, mangoes, 
guavas, custard apples, bananas, oranges, pears, 
apples, etc. I am fond of playing with dolls, and 
sometimes have a doll's birthday party. I am 
twelve years old, and my father and mother live 



178 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

quite near me. Please send me your likenesses. 
As far as I can, I try to be a good girl. I will look 
for another letter from you all. My special friend, 
Mary joins me in sending you all many salaams 
(respects) and much love. I am your grateful and 
loving friend. Hira — Lily." 

" P. S. — The whole of the above is a translation 
of Hira's letter. M. Seymour." 



" Bareilly, India, Sept. 25, 1889. 
(Translation.) 

" My Dear Friend : — I received your letter 
some time ago, but could not answer sooner on 
account of illness, though I wanted to do so very 
much. I was very glad to get your loving letter 
and know that you were doing well, and thinking of 
and praying for me. I suppose you don't know that 
I am married and out of school, and my husband 
and I are both at work in Bareilly. I love to do the 
Lord's work, and will also work for Him as long as I 
live. There is a Bible woman's class preparing for 
an examination, which is to take place during the 
the district conference in December. Besides going 
to the city I study in this class. I think there are 
thirty or forty of our native Christian women work- 
ing and studying, and I know that the Lord blesses 
our work, and we hope to bring many to Jesus by 
our feeble efforts. 

" I often look back to my school days and think 
how kind you have been in helping me get this good, 



THE GREAT COMMISSION. 179 

Christian education, through which I will be able to 
help others. I close with love and salaams. 
" Your affectionate girl, 

"Lily Amherst. 

" P. S. — Lily has made no mention of the things 
which she is to have. When I came through 
Bareilly I had no time to attend to purchasing them 
for her, so I have asked Mrs. Scott to see what books 
and other things she needs most, and purchase them 
for her. I think a few books, suitable for her work, 
and a warm jacket for the winter. Mrs. Scott will 
know what will do her most good. She will 
appreciate the things very much as coming from her 
kind friend. L. S. Parker." 

The second letter and post script were to me, 
personally. 

The little mission band were greatly saddened 
when into the midst of their circle and loving service 
death came and called one of their number from 
earth away. I give a copy of the resolutions passed 
by the broken circle at that sad time : 



"At a meeting of the Mission Band, Lilies of the 
Valley, July 7, 1883, the following resolutions were 
adopted in memory of the earnest little worker: 

" Nellie M. Clark. 
u Whereas, It has pleased the Good Shepherd to 



180 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

remove from our band one of our number to His 
fold. 

"Resolved, That while we shall miss her happy 
face, we will bow submissively to his will, and we 
will cherish her memory, and emulate her zeal to 
labor and pray for children who have never heard of 
the Good Shepherd. 

"That we will endeavor so to live that we, too, 
may be, at last, gathered to the fold above. 

" That we tender to her father and mother and 
sister our sympathy, believing the Good Shepherd 
can bind up their broken hearts, as He hath said : 
1 I lay down my life for the sheep ; ' and as Isaiah 
saith, Ch. lxi, 1-3 ; also, Ps. xxxiv, 18. 

" That a copy of these resolutions be sent to the 
parents of the deceased, and a copy be transcribed 
in our secretary's book. 

" Laura W. Kuland, 

"Lilla M. Clark, "President 

" Secretary. 

" Amherst, N. H., July 7, 1873." 

At the time of the death of this dear child, she 
who had so faithfully labored as their leader and 
teacher, dear Maggie Langford, whom I first met at 
Littleton, was not with us, having returned to her 
home. I had greatly desired she should enter a 
hospital and have a surgical operation performed, 
which it seemed might prove beneficial; but her 
parents were afraid to have her run so great a risk, 



THE GREAT COMMISSION. 181 

as it would require a very delicate and skillful 
operation. After her return to her home I one day 
received this dispatch : " Come at once. M. can't 
go until she sees Aunty." I went at once. She was 
calm and resigned, making all arrangements for the 
disposition of her effects, and also for her funeral. 
No food had been taken for weeks. We could not 
understand how life had been sustained. At last 
the end came, as nearly all her friends supposed, 
and we thought she had breathed her last. To the 
surprise of all she rallied, and lived another year. 
She returned to Amherst, not to her loved mission 
work, but to suffer and " endure as seeing Him who 
is invisible." She fell asleep in Jesus at the City 
Hospital, Boston, May the 8th, 1884. She was born 
in Ely, Cambridgeshire, England, April 15, 1854; 
was converted and united with the church in Backup 
in the spring of 1871. Her record is on high. 

For quite a number of years I served as secre- 
tary for Claremont District. For years I was per- 
mitted to go over the hills and through the valleys 
of New Hampshire, speaking on missions and organ- 
izing auxiliaries. My first acquaintance with the 
dear ones under whose roof this is written, was on 
one of those trips when I organized an auxiliary in 

East D , N. H. Nothing but a burning love for 

souls would have tempted me to leave my warm, 



182 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

comfortable home, and brave the cold of winter 
storms and the exposure of sleeping, as I sometimes 
did, in cold rooms, while on these missionary 
journeys seeking to stir up the churches to a sense 
of their responsibility with regard to perishing 
souls. On one of these trips I stopped at a place 
where arrangements had been made for me, in the 
midst of a pouring rain. I went to the house where 
I was told I should be entertained, only to be sent 
to another ; and when I arrived at that other, was so 
coolly received that it nearly broke my heart. I 
was told that a Congregational minister was to 
deliver a lecture there that evening. Feeling that 
the dear Master had sent me, I said : " Perhaps I 
could have a few minutes at the close of his lecture. 
The ladies would be all together then." I did not 
get much encouragement. At tea I felt the cold- 
ness manifested toward me so much, that I took 
occasion to speak of it, asking if they would kindly 
direct me to the hotel, if there was one, as I saw 
my presence was not acceptable to them. They 
said there was no need, as they were prepared to 
entertain me. (Would they have entertained their 
Master and mine in that manner ? ) The ladies 
lighted a lantern, and we started out for the meeting, 
1 stumbling along in the darkness, weeping and 
praying, wondering why I must be subjected to all 



THE GREAT COMMISSION. 183 

this, half forgetting, in my disconsolateness that 
" the servant was not greater than his Lord," when 
lo ! I brought up squarely against a bit of stone 
wall. That bump did me good. The words of 
David : " By my God will I run through a troop, 
and by my God will I leap over a wall," came like a 
flash into my mind. " David's God is my God," I 
said to myself, " and by the help of my God I can 
run through a troop of difficulties and leap over a 
wall of hindrances. God has sent me here, and He 
will help me. If God is for us, who shall be against 
us ? " With my spiritual strength renewed I reached 
the meeting-house. The Lord had His way. The 
expected minister did not put in an appearance. I 
had the whole time to myself. We had a season of 
prayer. I felt filled for the service, and prayed and 
prayed, till I suspect some of them thought I would 
never stop. The power of God was upon us. Other 
women prayed. We were all broken down together. 
After the meeting the sisters began to say : u Per- 
haps we can do something here after all." An 
auxiliary was afterwards formed at this place. " He 
that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, 
shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing 
his sheaves with him." I think this was the most 
chilling treatment I ever received anywhere on any 
of my missionary trips. Oh ! how many could I 



184 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

record, in which only loving arms were thrown 
around me, and loving words of sympathy and 
encouragement breathed into my ear. I believe the 
dear Lord, who knows my heart and my life, knows 
how earnestly I have striven, in my own home, to 
obey the Scripture injunction, to " use hospitality 
without grudging," remembering that in our use of 
our homes we may realize the blessing of the Savior's 
" Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least 
of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me." 

In marked contrast with the incident related 
above I recall one home, which I entered, where 
the people converted their parlor into a sleep- 
ing room for me, because their guest chamber could 
not be heated, even bringing down a bedstead from 
the chamber, and carefully heating and airing the 
sheets and all the bedding by a hot fire, that I might 
not take cold. They, too, were sharers in the "In- 
asmuch " of our blessed Lord. 

One missionary incident in my early life had 
been nearly forgotten by me, until brought to my 
remembrance at a public missionary meeting at 
Lynn, Mass., some years since, when I related it. It 
has been related at several missionary meetings 
since, and at the request of a dear friend of mine, 
was given her to use in the Friends' Missionary Ad- 
vocate, bearing date u Fifth month, 1890." I give it 



THE GREAT COMMISSION. 185 

entire as prepared by her for the press, at her own 
request : 

A MISSIONARY HEN. 

A little more than fifty years ago, there lived in 
a small town three miles from Ely, Cambridgeshire, 

Eng., a young girl, named Mary W. W . She 

was the only girl in a family of fifteen boys, twelve 
of whom died in very early life. Girls were rare in 
that family, and that one girl was a rare girl indeed, 
and has lived to be a rare woman; one of God's 
jewels, which He has taken special pains in polish- 
ing, and whose light has not only shone " to all that 
are in the house," but also, " before men," in the 
world outside the home circle, and whose work has 
been signally blessed of the Lord. 

One Christmas the mother in that home of fifty 
years ago, said to her three children : ki I am think- 
ing of giving you each a nice, young chicken for 
Christmas." One son thought his would make a 
good Christmas breakfast. The younger one saw 
some pocket money in his, if she should lay eggs. 
Mary said, " Oh, I am so glad ! Mine shall be a mis- 
sionary hen." The boys laughed at the idea of a 
u missionary hen," but Mary had her thoughts. She 
had learned to love the Savior, and she wanted 
others to hear of His love. The chickens were 
selected, and Mary's, a nice white pullet, was 



186 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

watched with solicitude and fed with care ; and 
soon, to the great joy of the owner, began to lay. 
The eggs were sold, and the money carefully laid 
aside. 

There came a day, however, when the missionary 
hen was the missing hen, as well. Mary searched 
all arouud for her with careful, tearful eyes, but it 
could not be found. She thought her married 
brother had taken it for fun, and perhaps had killed 
it, as he had said tauntingly to her : " I should 
think Providence would take care of your wonderful 
missionary hen." Still, he said he knew nothing 
about her, and the rest of the family said the same. 
Mary mourned sadly for her hen, and looked for her 
return every day, but in vain. 

About two weeks after the mysterious disappear- 
ance of the white hen, Mary's cousin, William, a boy 
who stammered badly, came into the house and said : 
" Cou-cousin Mary, I w-w-want you to h-h-help m- 
m-me ta-ta-take the ha-ha-hams down the eh-ch- 
chimney." They had a large chimney, and used to 
smoke hams for their neighbors, as they used wood 
for fuel, while their neighbors used peat or coals. So 
Mary stood ready to take the hams as William 
should hand them down. No sooner did he get a 
little way up the chimney than he shouted : " Oh ! 
cou-cousin Mary! Here's s-s-something alive up 



THE GREAT COMMISSION. 187 

h-h-here. Oh ! it fl-flutters." Mary cried out eagerly, 
" Be careful, William, it must be my missionary hen. 
Oh! poor thing; is she alive? Hand her down." 
u N-n-no," shouted back William, "your missionary 
hen was white ; th-th-this one is as bl-bl black as a 
co-co -coal." Mary took it in her hands, just a bunch 
of bones and feathers. She could not help crying 
over it. " You poor little thing," said she, " you are 
like a poor, old, worn out missionary, returning from 
the hot, scorching sun of Africa, with his skin burned 
about as black as the poor Africans themselves." Her 
tears and her soliloquy were both interrupted by 
another cry from William. " Oh ! b-b-but, cousin 
Mary, h-h-here are th-th-three eggs up h-h-here." 
" Hand them down carefully, William," said Mary, 
and down they came. 

You may be sure it was not very long before, 
under Mary's nursing and careful feeding, the mis- 
sionary hen was as plump and white as at first. Mary 
took one of the eggs, made a hole in each end and 
blew out the contents, then she put into the shell 
ten English sixpences for the white, and a golden 
balf sovereign for the yolk, and Is. 6d. additional, as 
the hen had been so singularly preserved by Provi- 
dence, making its contents in all, 1£, or $ 5, in our 
American money. She covered the egg with white 
satin, which had embroidered on it these words : 



188 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

'Missionary Egg. Mary W. W , April 12th, 

1839." She wrote a little history of the hen, how 
she came to be a missionary hen, how she was lost 
and found, how for two weeks she had no food but 
soot and smoke, both of which she surely had, for a 
fire was lighted in the fireplace several times during 
her stay up the chimney; and then she made an appeal 
to the farmers' wives and daughters in which she 
said : " If that hen did not fail to give to the cause 
to which she was devoted, under such trying circum- 
stances, what ought we to do, surrounded as we are, 
with all the blessings of life?" All this was en- 
closed in a white satin bag, with the word u Zeal," 
embroidered on one side, and " Love," on the other, 
and sent to the chairman of a large missionary meet- 
ing held at Ely, Cambridgeshire. 

The story was read amid tears and heartfelt ejac- 
ulations, the egg displayed, and its contents com- 
mented upon, for Mary had advanced a part of the 
money, Is. 6d., as she said, " For such a child of 
Providence, without interest." God gave compound 
interest, however, both to Mary and to the cause ; 
for the next year missionary ducks, pigs, hens, sheep, 
and apples were reported at the missionary meeting. 

Oh ! what a blessing was that black, white hen, 
given by a minister's daughter to the cause of mis- 
sions. Dear reader, can you not do as much as this 



THE GREAT COMMISSION. 189 

young girl did ? " Freely ye have received, freely 
give." 



Although our Children's Band in Amherst no 
longer exists as an organization, and through various 
changes our Womans' Auxiliary only exists in mem- 
ory, yet it is a source of great satisfaction to me that 
the young people are now, several of them, in other 
churches, where they are interested in working for 
the blessed mission cause, and the three or four re- 
maining members of the old auxiliary have not lost 
one iota of their old time love for, and interest in 
missions, and continue both their prayers and con- 
tributions. I can not believe the seed sown in those 
early days with many tears and prayers will ever be 
lost. It was sowed for God. And is in His blessed 
keeping. He can cause it to spring up and bear 
fruit to His glory. 

In September, 1878, I went to Lawrence, Mass., 
to attend a farewell missionary meeting on the eve 
of the departure of dear Clara Cushman for China. 
The meeting was both delightful and inspiring. I 
shall never forget the effect Brother Cushman's 
words, " Dear friends, this is no funeral occasion," 
had upon the audience. Besides the delightful 
experiences, I passed through one quite as trying, I 
suspect, as some of our missionaries pass through in 



190 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

foreign lands. Through an oversight in regard to 
the arrangement of the windows in my sleeping 
room, the mosquitos, whose name was legion, ob- 
tained free ingress, and all night long I battled them 
with as much vigor as Paul fought the wild beasts at 
Ephesus. When morning dawned, my eyes were so 
swollen that I could see nothing. Not being used to 
total blindness, I made such slow progress in dress- 
ing that a messenger came to my room, only to stand 
aghast at my disfigured condition. How was I to go 
to Boston that day and attend the farewell meeting 
there? Dear sister Cushman, Clara's mother, was 
quite lame from the effects of a rusty nail having 
pierced her foot, but our courage was good, and we 
started off, the lame and the blind, and with the help 
of our friends reached Boston. That Boston meet- 
ing was a most blessed season. A real spiritual 
uplift. And so they left us, the two young girls, one 
for China and one for Japan. The blessing of the 
Lord went with them, and rested upon their labors ; 
and though Clara Cushman is again with us, we feel 
she is doing as grand a work here for the missionary 
cause as are the missionaries who are at the other 
end of the line. 



CHAPTEE XII. 



TEMPERANCE. 

44 Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink, that 
pttttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also." 
Hab. 2; 15. 

44 The home is sad that once was gay 

With laughter's merry ring; 
And midnight gloom o'er open day 

Has spread her sable wing ; 
The curse has pressed her iron heel 

On innocence and truth ; 
And every hope that sense can feel, 
Is crushed in budding youth." 

44 O, man, dash down the fatal bowl, 

And look for help to heaven ; 
There's mercy for the sin-sick soul, 

And strength to weakness given ; 
His voice that calms the roaring sea, 

And bids the tempest cease ; 
O, let Him walk the waves to thee, 

And bid thee be at peace." 




192 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

TURING all my life of interest in mission 
work, both home and foreign, another 
cause has lain heavily on my heart, the 
cause of temperance. I have seen men 
of learning, of position, of influence, of respecta- 
bility, go down under the power of the intoxicating 
cup. I have seen the awful inroads this many 
headed monster is making upon our civilization, 
creeping into our halls of justice, warping the 
judgement ; into our families and even into our 
schools, debasing the morals, dethroning all of 
nobility and truth and purity, and enthroning all 
that was " earthly, sensual, devilish ; " and it has, 
indeed, appeared to me to be " the pestilence that 
walketh in darkness, and the destruction that 
wasteth at noon-day." None were safe unless the 
sprinkled blood was on the door, and even then the 
destroying angel laid his deadly hand on those who 
went out from such homes, no matter, I sometimes 
thought, how carefully they had been guarded while 
within its walls. I have looked upon this with 
anguish for years, until it has seemed to me we 
should not be fully awake to all this arch foe of 
God and man is doing, and really set ourselves in 
battle array against him, until there was at least 
" one dead in every house." I came to see how 
intemperance was at the very foundation of a large 



TEMPERANCE. 193 

proportion of all the crime and iniquity among us. 
how it was blocking the way of the church in her 
work at home and in the foreign field, and I said to 
my own heart : " Since there are more who will 
work in mission work than in temperance work, I 
will throw myself more heartily into the latter, 
while I do not at all relax my efforts as far as a liv- 
ing interest is concerned, in the former." The first 
blow I ever remember receiving was from the hand 
of a dear brother, in my young girlhood, while he 
was under the influence of beer. How bitterly he 
regretted it the next day, and how he urged me not 
to go to meeting, so ashamed of the black marks on 
my face; but — I went. Dear brother! may every 
brother whose hand is lifted against those who love 
him, see that this foe of God and man must be put 
down, and that God wants him to help in the work. 
Besides the two dark nights already recorded in 
this volume, others stand out in my memory ; hours 
when the black wing of this cruel, relentless foe 
seemed not only to overshadow me, but to close 
around me — to shut me in — to stifle my breath — 
till my soul cried out in her bitter agony, u How 
long, Lord, how long?" Some of these can not 
be chronicled by my pen, because of some still 
living, who were eye witnesses, if not participants,, 
in these scenes, but they are chronicled on high. 



194 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

u Put Thou my tears in Thy bottle. Are they not 
in Thy book ? " 

" Thy God hath marked each sorrowing day, 

And numbered every secret tear; 
And heaven's long age of bliss shall pay 

For all His children suffer here." 

One sad experience at Feltwell Fenn will never 
fade from my memory. Feltwell Fenn is a boggy 
district, the lands requiring much drainage in order 
to render them suitable for cultivation. The drain- 
age is effected by what are called land engines, 
which are used in forcing the water from the canals, 
and drains into the river. An engine-house had 
been built, and the engine was in readiness to be 
put into operation. A few of the men employed 
upon the building had boarded with me ; some had 
purchased their provisions, which I had cooked for 
them ; and still others were provided for on the 
other side the river. The superintendent was to 
come from London, and the engineer, my husband, 
and three or four others were at the station to meet 
him. This station was a bad place, being located 
where three counties touched, so that if any rogue 
wished to escape from justice he could easily flee 
from the constable by making a swift passage from 
one county into another. Strong drink could easily 
be obtained in the vicinity, as might be expected. 



TEMPERANCE. 195 

They stopped at the tavern and drank all they 
wished before starting for our place ; the river must 
be crossed in a boat, which was waiting for them. 
The engineer, too stupid to realize the consequence, 
began rocking the boat violently, and though told to 
desist, persisted in it, upsetting the boat, and send- 
ing my London tea and sugar-loaf to the bottom of 
the Brandon river, where it is a great wonder they 
had not all landed. I was to prepare a big dinner 
the next day, as all the magnates of the place were 
to be present at the " opening " of the new engine, 
to see how it would work. I could get no female 
help, and was obliged to depend largely upon the 
help I could get from the men. Being very tired 
with working and planning, I went to my room and 
retired. I had not been long asleep when I was 
awakened by loud yells and laughter, accompanied 
by unearthly noises. I suspected a drunken revel 
and sprang from my bed to the window. What a 
sight met my eyes ! If his Satanic majesty had 
come in person, or sent one of his allies from the 
pit, it could not have looked more appalling. One 
of the men had rushed to the engine-house, seized a 
shoulder yoke, from each side of which depended 
an iron pail, something like a coal-hod, full of burn- 
ing coals, and thus " lighted up," he was running 
at full speed toward my house, for what purpose I 



196 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

then knew not; but as I afterward found, in order 
to build a fire on the hearth that the men might dry 
their clothes, for it was very chilly. Soon a sharp 
knock at my door, and a voice called : " For God's 
sake, mistress, get up ! Your husband is drowned ! " 
Utterly worn out and disheartened at scenes of this 
character, I said in my desperation : " There's no 
such good news as that." (God forgive me for say- 
ing it. What bitter tears I shed over those words 
in after days.) u Well, he's all wet, and he wants 
you to get him a dry shirt." " If he wants a shirt 
he may get it himself. I'll have nothing to do with 
it." All night long I listened to their drunken 
carousals, and when, with swollen eyes and an ach- 
ing heart, I went down stairs in the morning, what 
a sight met my eyes ! There was my pretty parlor, 
the furnishings of which I had labored so hard to 
get, utterly ruined. Wet clothing hung on the 
chairs, the water from which had literally soaked the 
carpet, ashes strewn all over the hearth, the grate 
stuffed full of rubbish, old broken ale and beer 
bottles lying all about, my piano in the sitting room 
pilled up with wet clothes, old bottles, etc. My 
heart nearly broke. I remember how, as I stood 
leaning on the end of the piano, wishing with all 
my heart I could die then and there, my father-in- 
law came in. He took in the situation at one glance. 



TEMPERANCE. 197 

He had ridden for miles to reach there in season to 
be of some help in the preparations. The perspira- 
tion started all over his face. He did his best to 
comfort me, denounced them all, his son included, 
for their miserable folly and recklessness, and then 
appealed to family pride. "Mary," he said, 
" remember all the dons are coming, and we are 
depending upon you for the dinner." How he did 
help me with his sympathy and kind words. The 
rubbish was cleared away, some effort made to make 
the house look a little more respectable, and then 
the preparations for the big dinner commenced. 
Much of the cooking was done in big kettles out of 
doors, the men helping. The dinner gave satisfac- 
tion, and many compliments were paid the mistress 
for her ability, etc. But no amount of compliments 
oan cure the heart ache, or dry the tears of one who 
can but weep ddj and night for " the slain of the 
■daughter of her people." The cold and exposure 
brought hemorrhage of the lungs upon my husband, 
and severe colds upon the others. It was only of 
God's mercy that their lives did not pay the forfeit 
for their wicked recklessness. I have often wondered 
why I needed lesson after lesson before I lifted up 
my voice as a trumpet against this " gigantic crime 
of crimes." 

Another incident — and this time it is this side 



198 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

the broad Atlantic. The last night of the year 1875, 
was a night of anguish of soul, of sore conflict and 
wrestling with God, and also a night of victory. I 
was not physically strong enough to leave home to 
" watch the Old Year out, and the New Year in," 
and so spent it alone with God in my own home. 
My soul had been in agony for weeks ; for a shop on 
our premises had been rented by husband to a man 
who professed to want it for a fish market. From 
the very first I had an impression that the shop was 
wanted for a more lucrative business than selling 
fish. I pleaded with my husband not to rent it, but 
like most men he thought he knew his own business 
best. I could not rest. I sought the wife of the 
man and told her my fears. She confirmed them, 
and told me ale and stronger drinks were to be sold. 
I returned home with a heavy heart and talked with 
my husband about it. I said: u How can I go to 
our little church and on bended knee plead with 
God to save the young men of Amherst, while we 
are receiving an income from the rent of one of our 
buildings, where the accursed thing is sold that 
destroys both soul and body ? I can't do it. I 
would rather do with less food and clothing." My 
husband was sore perplexed; vexed at my fanati- 
cism — too sorry to trouble me — too ease loving to 
trouble the occupant of the shop — he firned pet- 



TEMPERANCE. 199 

tishly away. I went to my Father in prayer, and 
committed the case afresh unto Him. I believe the 
sorrow of my heart in the weeks that followed was 
largely the cause of my health failing. The dear 
Lord heard my cry ; He saw my tears, and sent tem- 
porary relief by giving me a little change of scene 
and service for Him. 

Our Presiding Elder came to Amherst, and before 
he left he said to me? "How I wish you could 

leave home for a little, and go to H , there are 

so many young men there who should be won to 
Jesus. The pastor, I know, would be glad of a little 
help." I felt it was of the Lord, and that the 
change would do me good. But I had not yet tasted 
the bitter dregs of this cup of suffering for and with 
my blessed Lord and His cause. I grew still weaker, 
physically. This last night of 1875 I wept, prayed, 
and agonized before the Lord till midnight. At last 
I rose from my knees and going to the window saw 
that fish market lighted up. My distress was so 
great that I determined to know what was going on 
in that shop, and forgetting my weakness of body I 
threw a shawl about me, and ran rapidly and 
yet stealthily down the garden walk. A curtain 
partly raised showed me hands full of cards. Cards ! 
how I hated them then, and h'ate them still. How 
I have sFjfered through card playing. I wanted to 



200 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

cry out — to shout — to do something to alarm them 
out of their sin, but it was not to be. I returned to 
my home and in agony of soul cried unto God. I 
told Him I had pleaded with my husband. I had 
done everything in my power, and now if he did 
not help me I should die. I felt as if n^ heart 
would really break, and I should die. At last, rising 
from my knees, I opened my precious Bible directly 
to the thirty-seventh Psalm, and read the tenth 
verse : " For yet a little while, and the wicked 
shall not be; yea, thou shalt diligently consider his 
place, but it shalf not be." In an instant my soul 
claimed the promise, and took hold on God for its 
fulfillment; but not certain how this thing was to be 
accomplished, I went to my husband, woke him, and 
told him I wanted him to get up and go to that shop 
and see what they were doing there. He refused, 
and at the same time forbade me to go. I said : " I 
have been, and they are gambling there ; and if you 
will not put a stop to this thing God has promised 
me He will take it in hand." I left him, and before 
long the bells were ringing out a joyous peal in 
commemoration of the independence achieved by 
our nation a century ago. Methought, as I heard 
them, how all the bells of heaven would ring, and 
all the harps would* sound, if this rum curse were 
but swept from our nation and the world. I have 



TEMPERANCE. 201 

always been glad the yoke of old King George was 
thrown off and his tea sunk in Boston Harbor ; but 
when, oh ! when shall this curse of curses be swept 
away, and the waters of old ocean no more be used 
to convey the demon of strong drink to the poor 
Africans, as well as those of other lands. What a 
spectacle in the sight of high heaven. Christian 
America sending a missionary to Africa now and 
then, and three thousand gallons of rum a day, 
every day for seven years, to the Congo region ! ! 
Well may the angels weep at such a sight as this ! 
Surely God is '* long suffering and of tender mercy, 
not willing that any should perish, but rather that 
all should come to repentance," or we should long 
ago have been cut off' from the face of the earth ; 
but God is not done with the American nation yet. 

" God is not dead, 
Nor doth He sleep." 

How my soul got hold on God that memorable 

morning. When the request for me to go to H 

was referred to my husband, he gave a ready assent, 
though he had not acquiesced in other similar 
requests. (Was he glad of the prospect of a little 
respite from the pleadings of this woman, so " pos- 
sessed with a spirit of fanaticism on the temperance 
question?*') On the morning of the seventh of 
February, 1876, he carried me to the depot, and as I 



202 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

bade him good-bye, I said to him : " Remember, 
husband, if you don't clean out that fish market God 
has promised me he will." I learned afterward that 
he did go to the man about it, and the man abused 
his pious wife for informing me of the nature of his 
business. Our W. C. T. U. had presented him with 
a petition signed with seventy names, begging him 
to desist from selling liquor, and to the sweet Chris- 
tian woman who presented it, as only a mother of 
boys could do, he sneeringly replied that he would 
accept it, and frame it and his United States license 
together. 

My stay at H was a great help to me. The 

very scenery along the way spoke to me sweet 
spiritual lessons, which were a comfort to my soul. 
So slight a thing as a wave from the river, as it 
washed the dingy snow and ice from the rocks along 
its banks, spoke to my soul of the blood that 
cleanseth, cleanseth from all sin ; and as I pondered 
on that precious word, Oh! how my soul was flooded 
with light and glory, which, like an elixir from 

heaven, filled me all the time I was in H . In 

spite of the opposition to the doctrine of holiness, 
which God called me to proclaim, the work there 
was blessed, and precious souls fed and cheered 
onward. 

Thursday, the 17th of the month, I returned to 



TEMPERANCE. 203 

my home. I find a record of rejoicing that some 
mercy drops were falling ; several were forward for 
prayers, and in a united meeting held in one of the 
churches, thirty-eight or forty took part in the 
services of the hour. God gave us blessed and 
helpful ministrations through His servants, whom 
He had anointed to preach the gospel. I needed all 
this to fit and strengthen me for some trials yet 
before me. 

Not very long after my return from H my 

husband came into my room one morning with a 
strange expression upon his face, saying : " Wife, 

have you been asking God to kill ? " " No," 

said I, "but I have God's promise that He will 

clean out that fish market. Why, is dead ? " 

" No, he isn't dead, but he is paralyzed." So the 
Lord kept His promise to His servant. The shop 
was cleared out, and " there was no more curse " of 
that kind on our premises. The man lived long 
enough to tell me how sorry he felt that he had ever 
sold liquor. He was reduced at last to great 
extremities, so that he was glad to have the tem- 
perance women he had despised, supply his needs ; 
and he died alone, with no hand to smooth his brow, 
no voice to whisper words of invitation or entreaty 
in his ear. God does hear and answer prayer, and if 
we are abiding in Christ by keeping His command- 



204 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

ments, and have a promise of God that we can take 
to Him, we can claim the answer to our petition. 
For, u This is the confidence that we have in Him* 
that if we ask anything according to his will He 
heareth us ; and if we know that He heareth us, we 
know that we have the petitions that we desired of 
Him." 

And now I come to another incident which must 
be chronicled here, although the word u incident " 
seems altogether too weak and inadequate a word to 
apply to such a sad, heart-rending experience. How 
many such have come into my life; many, many 
more than can be recorded here. One evening in 
June, 1878, a beautiful evening, as I well remember, 
on my return from meeting, my husband told me 
that a letter addressed to me was lying on his office 
table. I opened it, and found it informed me that 
my brother-in-law, Eobert Few, from whom I had 
heard only at long intervals for years, was lying very 
ill atfhis boarding place in Lawrence, and wished to 
see me. I copy from my diary : " June 5, 1878. Day 
of all days in this year to me ! My daughter and I 
left by the first train for Lawrence. We found the 
poor prodigal sick unto death, and in prison, the 
prison house of sin, apparently just coming to him- 
self. Oh ! his anguish, remorse, self-loathing, as 
after three weary hours of waiting, in which he had 



TEMPERANCE. 205 

several convulsions, we were permitted to look upon 
— what? Could this bloated, writhing, dreadful wreck 
of a man be all that was left of the bright, fair-faced 
young English lad who came with us across the water 
years before ? It was surely he, for he called me by 
name : ' Mary ! Sister Mary ! Dissipation, dissipa- 
tion has brought me to this! I am reaping — 
reaping — reaping — what I have sown ! ' Oh ! how 
true it is, ' the wages of sin is death.' My God ! why 
this sight for me to witness? Why, but that Thou 
wouldst have me use it as a warning to oth. r young 
men. He would not permit us to spend the 1 2;ht in 
such a place, but hurried us away, begging that we 
would go and see the overseer of the mill in which 
he had worked. Pride struggled with remorse, and 
he wanted his overseer should see that he had 
respectable relations. I entreated the physician to 
allow us to move him into a respectable house, some 
private family, anywhere, that he might not die in 
such a place ; but he told us it must not be. We 
reluctantly left him, the proprietor promising that 
he would at once telegraph me if any change for the 
worse should occur. 

" Oh ! God ! is there pardon still for him after all 
these wasted years, these years of debauchery and 
willful sin ? My mind is not clear as to how to pray 
for him. Why this perfect calm, when it seems I 
ought to be in agony of spirit for this erring one?" 



206 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

" Friday, June 7: A dispatch has come. Kobert 
is dying. I was too much indisposed to go. Husband 
and S. have gone." 

Later — " No Robert any more. They found him 
dead, and his body removed to the undertaker's. 
They went to the house where he died and were told 
he had no effects ; no purse, no watch, no trunk, no 
clothing. The harpies, among whom he had chosen 
to live and die, had taken everything. His dead 
body they had cast out because they could not make 
merchandise of it. Truly, ' the tender mercies of the 
wicked are cruel.'' His overseer at the mill told us 
he had made handsome wages. Doubtless sin and 
sinners had swallowed it all." 

" June 8 : All, all that remained of Robert Few 
is carried away from my home this day, to lie beside 
his brother till the archangel's trump shall sound. 
Oh ! will he have part in the first resurrection, or 
will the second death have power over him? My 
God ! uphold me in this sore affliction. They told 
my husband that the last night of his life he was 
calling for some one to pray with him, and I have 
been told that a minister was sent for, who did pray 
with the poor fellow. God only knows if there was 
hope in his death." 

How often I have thought : " God willeth not the 
death of the sinner." or Robert would not have been 



TEMPERANCE. 207 

spared to cross the ocean, recover from his sickness, 
and then go through the war untouched by the bul- 
lets of the enemy, all the time acknowledging that 
God heard and answered prayer. And then to think 
that he should defy God by putting himself in the 
power of the drink demon, to be destroyed at last. 
Boys, whose eyes may rest on these pages, beware, 
oh, beware ! Could I draw a picture of those last 
remorseful hours, I would do it. The sight of that 
agonized face can never, never leave me. His 
remorse came too late to save his life, but perhaps 
not too late to enter into the ears of the loving 
Savior. Yet I read in Heb. x, 31 : " It is a fearful 
thing to fall into the hands of the living God." 

As I stood alone in my parlor with my dead — as 
I looked upon him, just in the prime of life, for he 
was but forty-five years old, and thought of all the 
good he might have done in those years, as I thought 
of his wrecked manhood, of his eternity, my soul 
cried out : u Oh ! rum, rum, what hast thou done ? " 
As I pondered that question I seemed to see in the 
fearful category of crime, sin, misery, suffering and 
sorrow embraced in the answer, every conceivable 
evil under the sun ; and I there afresh dedicated 
myself to the service of God and humanity in the 
cause of temperance. Strong drink and the gaming 
table ! Oh, how many, many have they ruined. 



208 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

God has helped me to use the above incident 
many times, and has blessed it to the conviction of 
boys and young men. May He bless it to many who 
shall read these pages. 

Wednesday, March 1, 1876, our Reform Club was 
organized in Amherst, and about seventy signed the 
pledge. This club did really good work. One 
young man who signed the pledge there, afterward 
became a lawyer of some note. It grew to be an 
attractive place to the young men and boys, and was 
a means of keeping the latter from places which 
they might otherwise have frequented. 

Our local Woman's Christian Temperance Union 
was organized some years later, and though never 
large, has been sustained till the present time. We 
have taken up all the lines of work which seemed 
practicable. One line in particular we have always 
found practicable and in order — the line of prayer. 
We have had public meetings and good speakers as 
the way has opened, and rejoiced all the way along 
that though small in numbers we were yet a part of 
that grand organization which now belts the globe 
and is a blessing to all lands. 

Two hotels in Amherst had been burned. After 
a while a new sign was put up, and soon we heard 
that the boys were gathering there, gambling, and 
" going to the bad." Our local Woman's Christian 



TEMPERANCE. 209 

Temperance Union took the matter in hand. We 
prayed and conferred together about it, and sent a 
a request to the " fathers of the town " to look after 
it. As they did not seem to realize they had much 
to do with it, we sent them a copy of the law. 
They searched the place, but as the man had been 
notified of their coming, nothing but ale was to be 
found. After a little the business was resumed. 
Another letter was sent, and the Postoffice officials 
told the man : '- s Those women are still after you." 
Immediately upon that the man took a dose of 
Paris green, but too much to send him to the bar of 
justice, or too little, I can not say which. Soon he 
left, the sign was taken down, and he made the 
remark that he could have made a good living if it 
had not been for those " Pesky old women." 

One Fourth of July morning we found directly 
before our gate an old table covered with old bottles 
labelled with the names of different drinks, glasses, 
etc. My husband was very indignant. I laughingly 
told him I was glad everybody in the community 
knew just where I stood on the temperance ques- 
tion. 

The celebration of my seventieth birthday was 
such a bright spot in my life that a little account 
of it must be recorded here. 



210 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

Mrs. M. H. Richardson, Amherst, N. H. 

1821 — 1891. 



BIRTHDAY GREETING. 
By Mrs. L. R. H. Cross. 



Good mother, they say 

You're Seventy to-day, 
And we've all come to see you about it ; 

We look into your eyes, 

So merry and wise, 

And see in your hair 

Few silver threads there — 
Perhaps it is so, but we doubt it. 

Count never the years, 

No bosom it cheers, 
To talk of the Scriptural three score and ten; 

Who loveth the best 

Has outlived the rest; 

You're a hundred and more, 

By the heart-throb score — 
To reckon by figures on dials were vain. 

Work on the end, 

My stout-hearted friend, 
The harvest is great and the laborers few; 

And coming up late, 

To the beautiful gate, 

Bringing your sheaves 

With the autumn leaves, 
May it open its portals and usher you through. 




Present Residence of Mrs. Richardson, Amherst, N. H. 



TEMPERANCE. 211 

SEVENTIETH ANNIVERSARY. 



Pleasant Gathering at the Home of Mrs. M. W. 
Richardson, of Amherst, N. H. 



Members of the Woman's Christian Temperance 
Union will be interested to learn that Mother Rich- 
ardson, of Amherst, celebrated her seventieth birth- 
day on Tuesday, the 15th of September. 

There were present of the State Convention 
Committee, Mrs. Knox, Kinsley, Bean, Cross, Moore, 
Sawyer, Mclntire, and Wendell ; also Mrs. Chase, 
Griffin, Shepard, Tapley, Bowers, and Shaw, of the 
Trustees of the Mercy Home at Manchester, and 
Mrs. Hatch, the matron. 

A meeting of the trustees was held, in which 
some important business was transacted. 

Then came a bountiful dinner, prepared by the 
hostess herself, to which ample justice was done, 
after the singing of the hymn " Blest be the Tie 
that Binds." 

Beautiful floral gifts were everywhere. One from 
a Nashua friend was composed of seventy French 
marigolds, and if not agreeably fragrant, were very 
attractive. 

A letter from her old pastor, John Pilkington, 
now of Brooklyn, N. Y., full of the quaintest humor, 



212 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

was read, and recalled many pleasant experiences of 
forty years ago. 

The above poem, by Mrs. Cross, of Concord, 
written for the occasion, was read by Mrs. Knox, 
after which was the one feature of the occasion, the 
presentation of a purse made of red, white, and blue 
ribbon, containing seventy dollars in gold. 

Mrs. Chase, of Manchester, in presenting it, paid 
a merited compliment to the devotion of a foreign 
born woman to the dear old flag, her love for Amer- 
ican institutions, and unselfish labors for God and 
home and her adopted land, to which in its hour of 
peril her husband gave his life. 

The sum was the gift of the State and county 
officers, the local unions of Hillsborough county, 
and one good man, a friend of hers and the cause 
she loves. 

Her acceptance was full of that pathetic elo- 
quence so characteristic of her, as all know who 
have seen her at our conventions. 

Taking the gift, she said : " The red tells me of 
the blood of the dear Christ, without which I never 
could hope to wear the white. I will strive to be 
true to the blue. When I came here I took off my 
English spectacles, and have tried to be just and 
true to America. 

She then told the story of her once prosperous 



TEMPERANCE. 213 

English home, and the sad reverses that led them to 
leave it for a foreign shore, in which the pathetic 
and ridiculous were so blended that tears gave way 
to laughter before they had time to fall. 

Then followed a business meeting, in which 
arrangements for the coming State Convention at 
Nashua were perfected. 

The birthday cake was then cut and sent out to 
many local unions. The autograph book was pro- 
duced also, and then we were invited to visit the 
vault, for which the Richardson house is noted, it 
being once occupied by the Amherst Bank, and the 
masonry is still intact and looks as though it would 
defy even the modern burglar. Mother R. keeps no 
wine there, so in we marched and straight came out 
again. 

During the evening the resident ministers and an 
old pastor from Mt. Vernon, the Amherst W. C. T. XL, 
and many of the village people, among whom were 
the generous friends of the Mercy Home, Deacon 
Boylston and wife, called to pay their respects, and 
there followed a feast of wit, anecdote, and song, in 
which many voices blended. 

If there was at times a quiver in the notes of the 
old songs and hymns, we are sure angels called it 
harmony. 



214 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

Most of the guests were lodged in the spacious 
mansion. 

After a good night's rest, a tempting breakfast, 
and family prayers, the friends dropped out by twos 
and threes, and thus came to a close one of the most 
enjoyable gatherings of the W. 0. T. U. workers. 

Mother Richardson has during the past year been 
a second time widowed, and now takes into the lone- 
liness of her life these pleasant memories to cheer 
her through the coming winter. — From Patriot and 

People. 

" Amherst, N. H., Sept. 17, 1891. 

"Mrs. J. H. Fitts, South New Market, Editor of the 
Granite State Outlook : 

u My Dear Sister — Allow me (though inade- 
quately) to express through our paper the love and 
gratitude of my heart to the Beloved White Ribbon 
Sisters of New Hampshire, for their beautiful and 
tender remembrance of me, on my seventieth birth- 
day, in presenting me the National colors in the 
shape of a silk satchel containing $70 in gold. I 
think now 1 must be naturalized, having given the 
choice of my girlish heart to fight and die for his 
adopted land in the War of the Rebellion, having 
sojourned here near forty years, and for near twenty- 
seven years walked beside a native-born American, 
who cheerfully consented to have me go through 



TEMPERANCE. 215 

the State as opportunity offered and family duties 
allowed, to plead for cleaner streets for the oncom- 
ing, as well as the present young men and maidens, 
to walk in. 

As Sister Mrs. Chase, of Manchester, presented 
the little love token, quick as a flash the National 
colors meant more than ever before. The red I 
thought an emblem of the blood Christ shed ; white 
so pure, an emblem, too, followed by blue, he true, 
be true ! And with beating heart and dim eyes I 
said : " Yes, Lord, we will, we will." 

M. W. Richardson. 

HILLSBORO COUNTY. 

Hillsboro County Convention, June, 1891. 

A brief review of the W. C. T. U. of Hillsboro 
county for the past eleven years, with a few 
thoughts on the whirlwind that struck Ohio, Dec. 
23, 1873. 

What a bugle blast in answer to the prayers of 
a few Godly women, Dr. Dio Lewis' mother and 
other elect ladies, who prayed for and with the 
liquor sellers till they gave up their wicked business. 
Well might the old hero say " Ladies, you might do 
the same thing in Hillsboro if you had the same 
faith." Then turning to the ministers and gentle- 
men on the platform added, " Suppose I ask the 



216 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

ladies." They bowed their consent, and more than 
fifty women stood up. Do you wonder the sound 
thereof went East, West, North, and South ? The 
vibration reached New Hampshire and struck the 
parsonage at Newmarket, then Sister 0. W. Scott 
sent it rolling on to Concord, where iC Our Dear 
Mother White " ever on the alert to help others, 
caught the sound and from the Capital, it has reached 
or must reach every nook and alley in our " Old 
Granite State." 

Early in the year of 1873 a meeting was called 
for Feb. 24th. Remember this is the birthday of 
our first born, u The Temperance League." When 
this child was three years old, our sainted sister, 
Julia Ferrin, proposed to change its name. The 
christening was done in St. Paul's M. E. Church, 
Manchester, Nov. 22, 1876, amid many good god- 
mothers, we trust with the benediction of Heaven. 
At that memorable meeting I will call your atten- 
tion to one resolution, viz.: Resolved, that the 
present position of women, prominent and influ- 
ential as never before, should lead her in the com- 
ing year — the first in the second century of our 
national life — to most vigorously strive to secure in 
every town and village of our state, the organization 
of a Woman's Union of Temperance work. A 
union in faith, prayer and earnest work." Dear 



TEMPERANCE. 217 

sisters, is not this still the need ? Would not every 
godly minister welcome this band of earnest work- 
ers? God give us more faith. A carriage stopped 
at my door eleven years ago this month and I was 
transported to the quiet friendly town of North 
Weare. Found a Goldsmith there stirring up moth- 
er hearts to protect home and fight the foe that was 
robbing them of more than gold. What fires of 
indignation burned in some hearts ; mine caught fire. 
The Smith seeing it said " go and kindle fires 
through Hillsboro county." But I had no u Parlia- 
mentary Match," could not strike a motion when 
given to me. My ears tingle to-day at the remem- 
brance of the way I first treated a motion made 
by Mrs. Gartan of Nashua at that first County Con- 
vention held at Milford. No wonder a record of it 
is not to be found. It was a windy convention, 
almost Euroclydon, so much so, that fears were en- 
tertained for the safety of the new Baptist church in 
which we gathered. Notwithstanding the blunders, 
God gave us a good day and Rev. G. W. Norris, a 
grand lecture in the evening. 

At North Weare, when the Smith said " go," a 
noble woman with a warm heart, clear head, and 
helpful hands, Mrs. Timothy Kaley of Milford, (God 
ever bless her) was to help kindle those fires, and 
well did she do her part. Conventions were held at 



218 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

Park St. Chapel, Nashua, Amherst, Greenfield, and 
Hollis, all well attended and enthusiastic. For 
two years she was secretary and treasurer. At the 
Hollis Convention, June, 1882, she transferred her 
work into other competent hands, Mrs. Edward 
Aiken of Amherst. Our next convention was held 
in Manchester, Jan. 25, 1883. Where five prize 
essays on the " Twin Evils of Intemperance and 
Tobacco " were read by Miss E. T. Larkin. The 
judges awarded the first $5 to Miss Clara F. Preston 
of Nashua, age 17 years ; 2d, to Willie M. Mason, of 
Milford, age 17 years ; 3d, to George E. Conner, of 
Amherst, age 15 years. He is now 22 years old, and 
no liquor or tobacco has ever entered his mouth, 
so says his mother. That convention left its pro- 
test against the law-defying portion of that great city. 
In June following, we received our earnest and most 
alive yet sad reception at East Wilton; who that 
was present will ever forget sister Bussell's prayer, 
with fire bells ringing, steam whistles blowing, 
men and women running, ah ! I say who can 
ever forget it ? Surely we ran the guantlet with fire. 
A coal lodged on my back but it did little harm. 
After quiet was restored, Kev. Mr. Tracy informed 
us that a man had dropped dead at the fire, who 
lived next the church and had invited the selectmen 
to dine with him and attend our convention. Wilton 



TEMPERANCE. 219 

has been baptized with both fire and water. God 
save it from eternal fires. At that convention the 
President declined renomination. Miss E. T. Larkin 
was chosen to fill the place and Mrs. Richardson, 
first Vice President; Miss Ray, Secretary; Mrs. 
Sarah Bussell, Treasurer. Some way the machine 
stuck, till a convention was arranged for Francestown 
on May 27th, 1885, when your humble servant again, 
amid household cares and sorrows, became the nomi- 
nal head of the county. A trinity of memories 
cluster around the Francestown Convention; the 
news of a son's death, the return of a daughter 
after a painful absence, and the forming of a W. 
C. T. U. in the county, are a history of memories 
not easily to be forgotten. 

The next recorded convention was held at Am- 
herst, April 22, 1886, and a stirring one it was. A 
young man oifering to ring the bell, rang it so vigor- 
ously that the citizens began to think we advocated 
fire, not water. This convention was memorable 
for the way the mothers Kinsley and Bussell van- 
quished the man who asked " why we did not as an 
organization prosecute," etc. In December of this 
year we met at Hillsboro Bridge, where a newly or- 
ganized body called " The Hillsboro Co. Temperance 
Union" met. They in the Congregational church, 
we in the M. E. Church. We were invited to join 



220 MARY W. P. RICHARDSON. 

them in the evening. After addresses by Rev. C. 
Kichardson and Mr. George Eamsdell, the former, 
voted to invite the W. C. T U. to unite forces. I 
wrote to all the unions and the reply came "Our 
lines of work are too many and too important to be 
crowded into an hour or half day." So with thanks 
and a God speed we declined. Then it became hard 
to secure places for conventions, but as the minis- 
ters were the backbone of this organization they 
could open their churches, and did so, and here let 
me say, the W. C. T. U. have received nothing but 
courtesy and consideration from them and the W. 
C. T. U. has ever been on the program. Miss A. 
Ray and myself and State President have spoken 
for them many times as God gave us utterance. 

In Feb. 1887, a local Convention of two days in 
Manchester was called by sister M. A. Chase. It 
was of the Lord who gave us great enlargement of 
the soul and helped us to exhult in the God of 
Gideon ; it was a blessed time. This brings me to 
the memorable three 8's, 1888. Nashua, March 7th, 
where we found the " clear head, warm heart, help- 
ful hands* 1 had crossed the state line, and Massachu- 
setts' loss was New Hampshire's gain. There and 
then was pressed into service the woman who has 
made the last eight Conventions the success they 
have been. To the three noble women who have 



TEMPERANCE. 221 

been to me head, hands, and feet I shall ever feel 
indebted and can only ask to meet them in the 
" Sweet bye and bye," where no curse of drink, 
tobacco or uncleanliness can ever enter. 

One word more for the husbands of the four 
women who served you in Hillsboro county for 
the past eleven years. Three have " crossed the 
river" and are on the other side. The name of 
Kaley can not be forgotten. He was always ready 
to help by word and deed, always ready to be count- 
ed for the right. Rest noble benefactor ! Rest ! Dr. 
Aiken's Cold Water songs still vibrate and echo 
through the land. Jewett lives, still wishing us God 
speed ! Richardson no more will say, " wife go, do 
all you can." 

And now as Moses finished his work, and Joshua, 
young and strong, was chosen leader, so to-day, my 
sisters, choose you a younger leader, who shall be 
strong and of good courage and shall have good 
success. 

"Have not I commanded thee ? Be strong and of 
a good courage ; be not afraid, neither be thou dis- 
mayed ; for the Lord thy God is with thee whither- 
soever thou goest." Joshua 1:9. 

M. W. Richardson, 

County President. 



222 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

Three times in my life I have had the privilege of 
attending the National Convention of the Woman's 
Christian Temperance Union. 

The trip to Nashville, Tenn., can never be for- 
gotten. The perils of the journey were at last 
safely passed and we were, " by the good hand of 
our God upon us," assembled in that, to me, mem- 
orable Convention. The devotional exercises were 
of special interest. I well remember an illustra- 
tion used by our dear Hannah Whitall Smith in a 
morning Bible reading. She represented a great 
number of people as on a journey to the " Realm of 
Love," and in real earnest to get there. After go- 
ing a short distance they came to a hill, which the 
guide told them they must climb. They said they 
could not, for it was very steep, and there was noth- 
ing they could grasp by which to help themselves 
upward. They were told to step upward and an un- 
seen power would help them, but it seemed too much 
to believe. A dear Methodist sister came along and 
thought she could make her way up ; so as she saw 
a little bush growing above her, she grasped it, 
when up it came by the roots. She tried it again 
with the same result. Good works wouldn't take 
her up to this " Realm of Love." Then she tried 
stepping up, according to the directions, and pro- 
pelled by an unseen power, she found herself 



TEMPERANCE. 223 

going up — up — until she reached the top. Others 
followed her. What a beautiful vision enraptured 
their sight. A palace of exceeding loveliness, 
beyond compare, stood before them — the " Castle 
of Love." They stood spell-bound. Where was the 
entrance ? Was it occupied ? All seemed so very 
still. The entrance was found. It was far from 
being empty. Why were its occupants so quiet? 
They were all intensely busy — writing love letters. 
This was, indeed, the "Kealm of Love." As I 
listened to our Sister Smith my cup ran over. I 
could not keep still. I spoke and said I was sure 
there was a vestibule from the " Castle of Love " to 
the hills of New Hampshire, and that it extended 
to the southern borders of the Carolinas, for in my 
heart I had been writing love letters for years from 
my New Hampshire home to dear Sister Sallie 
Chapin, and when I knelt to pray in the dark days 
of the war I could not help praying for the mothers, 
wives and daughters of the " Boys in Gray " as well 
as for the families of the " Boys in Blue." 

Before I sat down, the Convention seemed 
melted into one. The " Eealm of Love " had come 
to us. A shower of glad tears was falling. Heart 
touched heart. I am sure mine has not grown cold 
towards the " Sunny South Land," and never will 
till it is stilled by the icy hand of death. 



224 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

My Sabbath morning was spent with a dear 
sister, a Friend minister, at Central Tennessee Col- 
lege. Months after I found in an old record book of 
expenses, that I had contributed of my means 
towards the erection of the college buildings. The 
Monthly Record is still sent me. What a blessed 
time we had that forenoon. I am so glad there is 
no distinction of nationalities with our Father in 
Heaven, but that " we are all His offspring." From 
that college have gone out hundreds of young men 
and young women to bless the world, and hundreds 
more will go in the days to come. 

When I think of that annual address of our 
'• Queen Frances," my heart throbs with gratitude 
to God for the warm heart, clear brain, and pene- 
trating eye which He has given her. " The secret 
of the Lord is with them that fear Him." God 
gives to those who walk with Him a clearer vision 
with regard to the progress of His truth in the 
world than is vouchsafed to those who walk by the 
light of human reason unsanctified by the grace of 
God. " This is the victory that overcometh the 
world, even your faith." Who could hear our be- 
loved Bishop Simpson preach from that text, and 
not feel sure that faith will give us the victory ? 

" Faith, mighty faith, the promise sees, 

And looks to that alone ! 

Laughs at impossibilities, 

And cries: ' It shall be done.' " 



TEMPERANCE. 225 

Oh, God, hasten the time when we shall all, as 
Christians, reach the " Realm of Love," and there 
learn to "love our neighbor as ourselves.'" 

A friend of the cause has sent the following 
account of a bit of work the dear Lord gave me to 
do for Him in helping toward the establishment of 
the Mercy Home in Manchester, N. H., with a 
request that it be incorporated in this chapter; and 
it is accordingly given space, with an earnest prayer 
that God will use it to His own glory in helping 
other weak women to be willing to be a mouthpiece 
for Him : 

"From its inception by the W. C. T. XL, Mrs. 
Richardson had been greatly interested in a Re- 
formatory Home for women and girls. When the 
State W. C. T. TL Convention was in session in 
Manchester, General Williams, himself a member 
of the Legislature, said to the State President : 
"Send a delegation from your body to Concord, to 
give information to the Judiciary Committee of the 
Senate, regarding the needs of this Home." 

Previous to this, the W. C. T. U. had asked for 
an appropriation from the Legislature, and later a 
delegation of W. C. T. U. women went before the 
Judiciary Committee of the House, urging the 
necessity for such a Home. Six women were chosen 
for this important mission. The State President, 



226 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

Mrs. Knox, was the guest of General Williams, and 
as they were nearing the depot to take the train, the 
General said to her: " Who are the women?" 
When she mentioned Mrs. Richardson's name he 
burst out : "Oh! you've made a mistake there, a 
great mistake, but it is too late to change. She will 
get excited over it and those men wont stand it. 
What they want is a clear, logical, and concise state- 
ment of the needs of such a Home. You women 
do make such mistakes." Mrs. Knox, in writing of 
this, says : " For a moment I wondered if we had 
made a mistake, and then I remembered the prayers 
that had been offered that God would guide us in 
this important mission, and we had no right to fear 
with the blessed promise, u In all thy, ways acknowl- 
edge Him, and He shall direct thy paths." 

When we were given audience with the commit- 
tee, I called upon the other ladies before calling 
upon Mrs. Richardson. At last her turn came. I 
sat opposite the General, and watched him closely 
to see the effect of her words upon him, as also 
upon the others. 

In a clear, low voice she began, and as she grew 
intense in her earnestness, her entreaties rose in 
that wonderful eloquence which all who have heard 
her understand so well. The hearts of her sisters 
beside her began to thrill, the chairman of the 



TEMPERANCE. 227 

committee showed very plainly that his heart was 
touched, while Gen. W. sat brushing away the tears 
thai would come to his eyes, evidently much to his 
annoyance, first with one hand and then with the 
other. I wish I could recall the words of that 
entreaty. We all felt, when she finished, that the 
victory was won. 

As soon as we left the room, the General came to 
me, saying : " I was the one that made the mistake, 
after all. You women have better judgment than I 
thought.'' 

When, at length, the Home was bought, and Dea. 
Boylston, a neighbor of Mrs. Kichardson, saw the 
item in the paper, he went directly to her with the 
information, and, as she afterward wrote me, " She 
cried for joy." 

There is one more item to which I must refer in 
connection with her part in the " Mercy Home." 
The Home was dedicated January 1, 1890. Her 
assignment was the " Dedicatory Prayer." Will any 
one who was present ever forget that prayer? It 
seemed as if we were being wafted to the celestial 
mansions, and with us the multitudes of poor, sin- 
ning ones that were to come to this place of refuge 
in which Christ was to be the central figure. It 
seemed as if the pleader was already inside the 
pearly gates, beseeching the Father in the name of 



228 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

His dear Son to bless the Mercy Home, and all who 
should ever find its open doors. 

One minister of the Gospel present said after- 
ward : "I have attended many dedications, and 
have heard many dedicatory prayers from our 
bishops and other great and godly men, but I never 
before heard such a wonderful one as that. It was a 
marvelous prayer." 

We knew from that time that the Mercy Home 
would fulfill its high mission, and nobly has it done 
so till the present time. 

And now here comes another, a dear, aged sister 
and life-long friend, of the cause, who begs to add a 
word with regard to another time when the Lord 
condescended to use His poor, weak child for His 
glory. She says : u I would like to mention one or 
two instances where Mrs. Kichardson's power to 
speak at short notice, or no notice at all, has come 
under my notice. 

" The first was before we were intimately ac- 
o i aainted, and occurred while we were holding a 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union convention 
in our city (Manchester, N. H.) some years ago. 
The services of Mrs. E. McLaughlin, of Boston, had 
been engaged for the evening, extensive notice had 
been circulated, and a large audience had gathered, 
including the clergy and many influential people, 



TEMPERANCE. 229 

when, to our dismay, we found our lecturer had not 
arrived, and no later train could bring her. We had 
reason to fear sharp criticism from many in the 
audience should the evening prove a failure, and 
could only cast ourselves upon God in our strait. 
We rallied our forces, however ; two or three ladies 
upon the platform spoke briefly, and then Mrs. 
Richardson rose to her feet, and to the occasion, 
and gave such a thrilling address the audience 
remained spell-bound to its close, and a generous 
collection told of the heart} 7- appreciation of the 
hearers. One clergyman was heard to remark, on 
leaving the church : c Few committees of men, on 
being disappointed in a speaker, could, on the spur 
of the moment, furnish such a rich feast as this.' 
Another said : 1 1 don't see why you send out of the 
state for a speaker.' Our dear sister very modestly 
took the thanks and congratulations which were 
accorded her, knowing well ' who hath made man's 
mouth,' and who gave power to give the message." 
The other instance related by this dear friend 
as occurring at Concord, is probably the one that 
has been already recorded. To God be all the glory. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

INCIDENTS IN BUSINESS LIFE. 

"When all thy mercies, O my God, 
My rising soul surveys, 
Transported with the view, I'm lost 

In wonder, love, and praise ; 
In each event of life how clear 
Thy ruling hand I see, 
Each blessing to my soul more dear 
Because conferred by Thee." 

God has been very good to me in all my business 
life. It seemed remarkable that I should be able 
to capture the eye and please the taste of the 
American women in my millinery work. I see now 
it was simply because God gave me favor in the 
eyes of the people. I had never seen a Christmas 
stocking before I came to America, but as Christmas 
drew near I added to my stock some pretty trifles 
which I thought might sell well, and inserted in the 
paper the following simple rhyme by way of adver- 
tisement, which drew considerable custom : 



INCIDENTS IN BUSINESS LIFE. 231 

ADVERTISEMENT. 

Come Grandmamma and Grandpapa, 

The close of the year is drawing near, 
The stocking you soon will see; 

Then here you will find to please your mind, 
Very good toys for girls and boys, 

And cheap — yes cheap they shall be. 
At the fancy store, though never before, 

May be found for sale the lantern and pail, 
Though no well nor water are here; 

But dolls that are tall and dolls that are small, 
And soldiers to fight all your battles, 

Little ones that will cry, with no tear from their eye r 
Come, look at these wonderful chattels. 

— M. W. Few. 

I knew little of the politics of this country, but I 
knew that I hated the institution of slavery. Hap- 
pening one day to hit the political prejudices of 
some of the men of the village in my advertisement 
of " Nebraska bonnets," I was informed that I had 
brought a hornet's nest about my ears, for one man 
threatened to horse -whip, and another to shoot me. 
I called at once at the store of the latter, made a 
purchase of sugar, and told him what I had heard, 
asking him pleasantly what he was going to shoot 
me for. He was in a very placid mood, and I heard 
no more of shooting. A very profane man to whom 
I gave the life of John Bunyan as a Christmas pres- 



232 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

ent, made a similar threat with regard to me ; but 
treated me quite decently if not politely, when I 
called on him. He sent for me to pray with him 
when on his death bed. When God leads by His 
Spirit we need be afraid of nothing, except that we 
may fail to do our whole duty. 

I can but acknowledge the hand of God in my 
pecuniary affairs as I review the past. I found once 
on preparing to go to Boston to make purchases, that 
I needed fifty dollars more. Some of my neighbors 
had been in and asked me to make purchases for 
them, without putting any money in my hand with 
which to do it, and for a little I felt troubled. I 
went to my room and laid the matter before my 
never failing Friend and Counselor. Soon an old 
Baptist brother came in and invited me to attend a 
prayer meeting to be held at his house. I told him 
I would go, for I always feel a wonderful drawing to 
prayer meetings; thank the dear Lord that put it in 
my heart. Soon I began to think about the fifty 
dollars I needed, and the old enemy whispered : 
" You had better be looking for that fifty dollars 
than hunting up a prayer meeting." I thought of 
two friends of whom I might get the money, but did 
not get the time before meeting. Then came a 
struggle. I could not attend to the matter in the 
morning the stage left so early. Which should I do. 



INCIDENTS IN BUSINESS LIFE. 233 

attend the meeting, or attend to this matter of busi- 
ness ? The prayer meeting gained the day, and oh, 
how God did bless us. I shall never forget some of 
the prayers there offered, especially one by a brother 
for his family, who soon went home to Father's 
house. I feared the friends on whom I wished to 
call would have retired, and when the lady of the 
house asked me to stop a bit after the meeting, I felt 
for a moment indisposed to do so. Out of courtesy 
I waited, and when the people were gone she said to 
me : a Mrs. Few, are you going to Boston in the 
morning?" I answered, "I expect to go." She 
then said : " Will fifty dollars be of any service to 
you?" My eyes filled with tears as I said, " How 
came you to ask me that ? " " Because," she replied, 
u as I knelt by your side in prayer this evening, I 
heard, I can't tell you how, these words ; ' Let Mrs. 
Few have the fifty dollar bill paid you to-day,' and 
so I asked you." Do you not think, dear reader, 
that I " thanked God and took courage ? " Seek 
first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and 
all these things shall be added unto you." 

On another of my business trips to Boston, the 
clerk of a store where I traded, exclaimed, as he saw 
me approach : " How glad I am to see you. I have 
been wishing all the morning you might come." 
Turning over his customer to another clerk, he said : 



234 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

u Follow me. I want to show you some goods. One 
of our milliners has failed, and we had to take what 
we could. Here is this job lot of goods, the whole 
lot for one hundred and seventy-five dollars. It is 
just the lot for a country store, and money to be 
made out of them." I looked them over, and said : 
" Yes, Mr. J., there is money in them, but I can't 
take them. I have only money to pay my bills and 
get the things I need." He replied, " Let the bills 
go; you can have credit with this firm to any 
amount." u Yes, sir; because I pay my bills 
promptly ; and I shall do it to-day." 

My eyes fill as I write this — I did not know why 
1 asked him to keep the goods till the afternoon, but 
I did; and after paying my bill, and selecting some 
goods, I went to a store for a little work I needed 
done, and as I was told it would take but ten or fif- 
teen minutes, I sat down to wait. In a few moments 
a shadow crossed the window, the door opened, and 
in walked my friend, Mr. L., with a handful of 
" greenbacks," saying, u As I passed the window I 
saw you. How are the folks? How do you find 
goods? Have you all the money you need?" I 
answered : u I thought I had, but I have found a 
job lot of goods I could get cheap for cash, if I had 
it." He smiled as he said, " I have just been to bor- 
row this," holding out his hand, " I only needed five 



INCIDENTS IN BUSINESS LIFE. 235 

hundred, but I asked for seven, I don't know why y 
unless it was to let you have the rest. Take this 
two hundred, if it will do you any good," putting it 
it in my hand as he spoke. 

I had not told him the price of the goods. Do 
you wonder again, my reader, that my eyes filled — 
that the man for whom I was waiting looked on in 
surprise as he saw the money put into my hand 
without my asking, without any note of security? 
" I never saw business done after that fashion be- 
fore," was his remark. He did not know that I had 
an unseen Partner in my firm, who was always 
working and planning for me. 

I returned in the afternoon to the first store men- 
tioned, and told Mr. J. the circumstance. I said: 
" I think my Heavenly Father put it into my mind 
to ask you to keep the goods till afternoon, for I cer- 
tainly did not know of any one in Boston of whom 
I could obtain the money. But here I have enough 
to pay for the goods and twenty-five dollars over." 
He, too, recognized God's hand in it. I have often 
wondered if I shall meet this kind English friend^ 
Mr. J., in the Father's house above. Doubtless it 
was the national tie that bound us, which led in part 
to his kind interest in my business. Oh ! how I 
wish that all who profess to belong to those whose 
''citizenship is in heaven," felt as deep an interest 



236 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

in their fellow travelers, as he felt in me. Children 
of the same Father, bound for the same bright home 
on high, how we push and jostle one another on the 
rough highway of life, forgetting that we are broth- 
ers and sisters ; and how little commiseration have 
we often -times for him who has wandered from the 
path of rectitude, forgetting that 

" Heir of the same inheritance, 

Child of the self-same God, 
He hath but stumbled in the path 

Thou hast in weakness trod." 

When I went into business in Nashua, I was told 
that I should have no success in trading with Irish 
and German customers, because they would not pur- 
chase unless one set the price of goods high enough 
to be able to fall one-half the price asked. I replied 
that if that course had not been pursued with them 
they would never have acquired the habit. I fear 
many who stand behind the counter forget that the 
eye of God watches the measure and the yard-stick. 
Oh ! for honesty ; clean, upright dealing with our 
fellow men. This alone can win the blessing of 
Heaven. 

I believe it was largely owing to my honesty in 
business, and promptness and accuracy in meeting 
my bills, that God blessed me in preserving me from 



INCIDENTS IN BUSINESS LIFE. 237 

losses, so that I never lost a hundred dollars in all 
the years I was in trade. 

I remember a woman coming into my store one 
day and selecting a bonnet and trimmings for her 
two daughters. When they were finished, she said 
she would not take them, but send for them by ex- 
press when she sent the money, as she had not her 
purse with her. She afterward returned, and said 
perhaps she had better take them ; it would save 
some trouble in sending for them, and she would at 
once send me the money. I very unwisely allowed 
her to do so, and was afterward informed by a 
neighbor that I had been imposed upon, for the 
woman was in the habit of doing those things, and 
would probably never pay me. On my assuring 
him that I should get it, he told me he would give 
me a chicken supper if 1 would inform him of the 
receipt of the money. I waited and waited, but no 
money came. At last I wrote the daughters, and 
rather than have their mother exposed they sent the 
money due me. My neighbor gave me the chicken 
supper. 

My assistants in the store learned my way of do- 
ing things, and were careful not to allow work to 
leave the shop until it was paid for; but one day 
when at my dinner, a young girl called for a hat 
which she had ordered, tried it on, and seeing I was 



238 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

absent, she left the old hat and rushed from the store 
to the depot, hoping to make her escape with the 
new hat. My young lady clerk was equal to the 
occasion, however, pursued the thief, reached the 
station, reclaimed the new hat and leaving the old 
one on the owner's head was back in the store again 
before my return. 

I think it was Fowell Buxton who said, u Honesty 
and integrity should be the corner stone of every 
business transaction." 



®%t® 



CHAPTER XIY. 

SPECIAL BAPTISMS. 

u 0h, what wonder! how amazing! 

Jesus, glorious King of kings, 
Deigns to call me His beloved, 

Lets me rest beneath His wings. 
All for Jesus! all for Jesus! 

Resting now beneath his wings." 

I date the time of my baptism with the Holy 
Spirit away back in my English Home, not very 
long after my conversion, when I sought and 
obtained a clean heart. Since then many times I 
have received from the Lord a fresh girding of 
strength for some special need, and the memory of 
those seasons is so precious to me that I desire to 
record some of them here. Sometimes the Lord has 
thus met me and poured upon my head the holy 
anointing oil when I have been alone in my closet ; 
sometimes it has been when I have been kneeling 
with two or three choice spirits claiming the promise 
given by our Blessed Lord to the "two who should 
agree as touching anything they should ask ;" some- 



240 MARY W. F. lUCHARDSON. 

times in the prayer meeting, class meeting, or camp 
meeting; and sometimes when standing at my iron- 
ing board. 

" Where'er we seek Thee Thou art found, 
And every place is hallowed ground." 

For many years it has been my practice to 
" watch the old year out and the new year in. On 
one of these occasions, before retiring, I stopped to 
look out at a window I was passing, and as I looked 
upon the landscape lying so still beneath the lovely 
moon, the houses bathed in its clear light, I was 
arrested by the query that arose in my heart with 
regard to the sleeping inhabitants : were they shel- 
tered under the blood, or exposed to the awful 
penalty of sin? As I pondered this solemn ques- 
tion, such a spirit of prayer rested upon me that I 
sank to my knees, and, it seems to me now, my 
heart was u poured out like water " before the Lord. 
As I prayed and pleaded for these souls, God poured 
His spirit upon me till my soul was filled " unutter- 
ably full of glory and of God." I praised, I shouted, 
u Oh ! glory, glory ! hallelujah ! " My husband, 
awaked from his sleep, thought I had gone crazy. 
He did not understand it. I was literally filled with 
the new wine of the kingdom. Oh ! praise God for 
such seasons as these! 



SPECIAL BAPTISMS. 241 

At Stirling camp meeting, as Dr. Daniel Steele 
came forward on the platform, hymn-book in hand, 
and began reading the old hymn — 

4 'Oh! love divine, how sweet thou art! 
When shall I find my willing heart 

All taken up by thee ? 
I thirst, I faint, I die to prove 
The greatness of redeeming love, 

The love of Christ to me,"— 

again the blessed filling power came upon me. My 
Jesus revealed himself to me in overpowering 
sweetness and majesty. During Dr. Steele's ser- 
mon, there was the same precious manifestation to 
my ravished soul. 

At Epping camp ground, when our Nineteenth 
Century Paul, Bishop Taylor, prayed, oh ! how the 
power came upon us. I well remember our sainted 
sister, Julia Ferrin, with her face always beautiful — 
literally transfigured, as filled with the overpower- 
ing presence of God, bereft of physical strength, 
she could only whisper : " Three tabernacles : three 
tabernacles ! " I remember how we assisted her to 
her cottage, and how our " Hallelujahs " filled all the 
place, as, with shining, tear-wet faces, we praised 
the God of our salvation. 



242 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

11 It gave our ravished souls a taste, 
And made us for some moments feast 
With Jesus, priests, and kings." 

Oh ! yes, we were more than fed with crumbs 
from the Master's table. He girded Himself, made 
us to sit down at His table, and feasted our souls 
right royally. "If any man hear my voice, and 
open the door, I will come in unto him and sup with 
him and he with Me." 

In June, 1878, that time of sore trial recorded in 
the temperance chapter of this book, when my 
brother's remains were brought to my home for 
burial, I had another precious visitation of my Lord 
in His anointing power and grace. I find this record 
in my diary of that date : " Miss L left us to- 
day. What a loss ! She is one of God's dear chil- 
dren — has learned to rest under the blood. How 
sweet the communion when kindred spirits thus sit 
together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. God of 
love, make us a mutual blessing. Something good 
will grow out of this, I am sure." That thought was 
prophetic, for is not that dear friend the very one 
whom God in His love has given me to assist in pre- 
paring this little book for the press ? I well remem- 
ber how, alone on our knees before God, He gave 
my soul a wonderful victory, and I was enabled 



SPECIAL BAPTISMS. 243 

afresh to praise Him for a new manifestation of His 
love and power. 

Some of my moments of inspiration have come 
to me while about my household duties ; and I have 
been so filled I have said to myself: " Oh ! if I could 
have a congregation before me now, how I could im- 
press upon them the necessity of being ' filled with 
all the fullness of God.' " I could see how, if God's 
people were in line with him, the Amalekites, 
Canaanites, and Midianites, representatives of the 
great evils of the day, would flee before the hosts 
of God were they as few in number as Gideon's 
band. Empty vessels lighted up with the Holy 
Spirit, God can use. I think the confusion arose in 
the army when they heard " The sword of the Lord " 
was after them, before they heard a word about 
Gideon. If God's people "hated nothing but the 
devil, and feared nothing but sin," what a mighty, 
mighty power they would be in the hand of God. 

Only once in my life have I had such a season 
of spiritual blessing that, like Paul, I could say : 
" Whether in the body or out of the body, I can not 
tell; God knoweth." It was during a series of 
united meetings in the city of Manchester, where 
Eev. C. H. Fowler was laboring. We were on our 
knees in prayer, pleading with God to appear in 
mercy for the people, when, as in a vision, I seemed 



244 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

to see our mighty, ail-conquering Jesus appear walk- 
ing on the troubled billows of sin and unrest, and as 
He stepped majestically, yet calmly and sweetly 
onward, the waves of avarice, uncleanness, drunken- 
ness, pride, unholy ambition, all, all sank beneath 
his feet, and the turbulent, seething ocean became 
as calm as a summer sea, Oh ! the glorious, and yet 
soft and heavenly radiance that clothed Him. As 
He drew near how my soul adored Him, exulted in 
Him. Just at the moment when by faith I claimed 
God's promise for the work and the workers, others 
in that kneeling band broke out in shouts of victory. 
And victory indeed came. 

At the National Holiness Camp Meeting, at 
Hamilton, I received a great blessing. Under the 
preaching of Kev. W. H. Boole on the extravagant 
use of money by Christians for personal adornment 
and luxury in their homes, I was so convicted with 
regard to a recent expenditure of money for my 
home, that I was all melted and broken down before 
God. In my contrition, pleading with God for for- 
giveness, and afresh consecrating all to Him, I lost 
all strength and slipped to the ground. My loving, 
compassionate Father forgave me, and accepted my 
fresh dedication of my all to His service, filling 
me with " peace in believing and joy in the Holy 
Ghost." 



SPECIAL BAPTISMS. 245 

At this same meeting I saw Eev. Alfred Cook- 
man, of precious memory, so overcome by the 
power of God's Spirit that he lay for hours without 
strength, and was unable to preach in the evening. 

When. Bro. Dunn came forward to lead the ser- 
vice of song, and sung the beautiful hymn having for 
its chorus — 

"I'd rather be the least of those 

Who are the Lord's, alone, 
Than wear a royal diadem 

And sit upon a throne." 

and emphasized it in his peculiar way by saying at 
the close of each verse : u I would ! I would ! " the 
power of God rested down upon us so that we were 
bathed in tears. There was no shouting, but Oh ! 
such a sweet melting down before God. Our hearts 
were knit together in love, as one. 

At Christmas, 1890, among other love tokens 
there came to me a handsome duster-bag, and in it a 
duster and a little book entitled, " The Good Old 
Man." I laughingly told my husband that a " Good 
Old Man " had traveled a long distance in a duster- 
bag to see me. Being very busy I did not examine 
it ; but one night, not long after, I put out my hand 
to take my precious Bible, that I might find some 
sweet promise for my pillow of rest, when my eye 
fell on the little book, and I opened it. My heart 



246 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

beat faster as I read the word " Cambridgeshire," 
and then my eyes filled with tears so I could hardly 
read : " Master Munns was a good old man." I had 
heard him preach, over and over. My prayers and 
tears had many a time mingled with his. He had 
ridden miles and miles with my own sainted father 
to preach a full salvation. And now that this little 
account of the dead man should come to me, a jour- 
ney of three thousand miles, after a lapse of nearly 
forty years, seemed wonderful to me. Oh ! the 
goodness of God to me ! Wonderful ! Wonderful ! 
Thanksgiving, gratitude, praise filled my heart to 
overflowing, and I was physically as weak as a child. 
How wonderful did God's love and watch care seem 
to me. Dear Brother Munns, I seem to see him now . 
— so humble, so tender in his persuasiveness, the 
tones of his voice so gentle, as he labored in the 
Master's vineyard. 

These precious seasons, these ministrations of 
God's blessed Spirit to my soul can never be forgot- 
ten. Others may deem them fanciful, overwrought, 
imaginative ; but my soul and I know they were of 
the Lord; that they were for my strengthening, to 
fit me in nearly every instance for some sore trial 
that was to follow. And they did have just that 
effect. This could not have been had they come from 
any source but the " Shepherd and Bishop of souls." 



CHAPTEE XV. 

GLEANINGS. 

"When all Thy mercies, O, my God, 

My rising soul surveys, 
Transported with the view, I'm lost 

In wonder, love, and praise." 

"Through hidden dangers, toils and deaths, 

Thou gently cleared my way, 
And through the pleasing snares of vice, 

More to be feared than they." 

'S THIS volume nears its close, I would fain 
act the part of a gleaner, and from the 
corners of the field, here and there, gather 
up some of the handfuls of experience 
which have been mine, that by so doing I may 
glorify God and benefit others. My heart swells 
with gratitude to God for His many signal mercies, 
among which his care over me from my infancy to 
the present time has been wonderful. When quite 
a child I suffered for months from blindness conse- 
quent upon a severe attack of measles. Being left 
by my mother one day with my two brothers, while 




248 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

she attended to some household duties, my elder 
brother left the room to get a lunch for the younger. 
I wanted to call after him and rose from my little 
chair to turn my face towards him. In doing this 
my dress caught fire at the open grate, and I was 
enveloped in flames. The brother shouted at the 
top of his voice : " Mother ! Mary's all on fire ! " 
My mother rushed to me, wrapped me in a woolen 
rug, and smothered the flames. My hair was burned 
from my head, and my neck was badly burned also. 

At another time, when older, my pony ran away 
with me. The boy who was with me to care for me 
galloped after me at a furious pace, shouting so 
loudly that he helped rather than hindered the mis- 
chief. My pony ran up a steep hill, and I thought 
my time to die had come, for just over the bank was 
the " catch-water " (a deep ditch for draining the 
land ), and I could see nothing before me but 
destruction. But the pony stopped so suddenly he 
unseated me for a moment. I managed to regain 
my seat, however, while his trembling was pitiful to 
see. Surely God intended the little girl should grow 
to womanhood, and do something to make this old 
world better. 

Once since I came to America I have had a nar- 
row escape from death by a runaway horse, which 
brought up suddenly against a stone post. Again, 



GLEANINGS. 249 

in endeavoring to restrain a runaway, rny thumb 
was seriously injured. A third time have I experi- 
enced a similar accident. 

I do praise God for all the blessings of my life, 
and especially for those of the twenty-seven years 
following my release from business life and its cares. 
I shall never forget how full of restfulness was the 
change to me, or how I enjoyed my home — " Sweet, 
sweet home." Even nature seemed to teach me 
new, fresh lessons every day, many of which have 
been very, very helpful to me in my work as a pub- 
lic speaker, and hold a place in my memory still. 

In a tree near my parlor window, I watched a 
pair of robins build their nest, and marked the bird 
pride with which they seemed to contemplate their 
own skill as they chatted gaily over their work. 
One day I saw but one, and going to a window in 
the room above which overlooked the nest, I saw 
the mother bird sitting there. I watched Father 
Rob to see if he was faithful to bring his lady plenty 
of food and news from bird land, and he was very 
faithful. After a little, the nest was full of young 
life. One day the heavens gathered blackness, the 
thunder rolled, the lightnings flashed, and I won- 
dered what would become of my birdies. I ran up 
stairs to look down into the nest. My eyes filled 
with tears as I saw that mother bird tenderly hover- 



250 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

ing over her big brood, and making a perfect shelter 
for them. No matter how hard the great drops 
pelted her. Were not her little ones safe neath her 
sheltering wings? The father bird hopped about 
chirruping as if to say : " It is all right ; the mother 
looks to the safety of the birds while inside the 
home nest, and I will watch that no harm comes to 
them from the outside." I looked on from my win- 
dow, thanking God for mother love, and then the 
thought came to me, the time is coming when she 
can not shelter all these, for they will outgrow the 
nest. 

One day after dinner, I heard a great commotion 
in my garden. I felt intuitively that there was 
trouble with my birds, and so there was. I don't 
know where all the robins came from, but a host of 
them were holding an indignation meeting at my 
neighbor's back door ; for had not her cat carried off 
that precious young bird ? The nest had grown too 
small for these growing birds, and over one of them 
had flopped ; the cat had watched her opportunity, 
and snatched the sweet morsel in a twinkling. I 
could not help weeping as I said : " Yes, a mother 
may go into the very jaws of death to give life to 
her child, but however much she may toil and suffer 
for her birdlings, the day comes when they go out 
from the home, and there is thejliquor saloon, the 



GLEANINGS. 251 

gambling den, vice in every attractive form, like a 
huge, cruel cat, ready to pounce upon them; but oh! 
so stealthily, so softly, that they never dream of the 
sharp, cruel claws, the agony, the death to follow. 

What wonder that mothers are banded together 
for Home Protection ! God of love, hasten the day 
when the two P's shall be transposed, and principle 
shall come before party; when women shall no 
longer be classed with idiots, paupers, and crimi- 
nals, but, with the ballot in their hands, shall 
express themselves at the polls in a manner which 
shall tell on the state and nation. Then, and then 
only, will the mother-heart of America be glad, 
angels rejoice, and God be honored in our beloved 
land. Haste, glad day ! 

The pleasant relations of my new home did not 
exclude love for other homes, and a deep sympathy 
for those who were treading a sadder path. Calls 
came to me to labor in the cause of both missions 
and temperance, and now and then a call to evan- 
gelistic work. 

The first call that came to me to engage in evan- 
gelistic work after my second marriage, was from 
Dr. Flood, editor of the Chautauquan, who was then 
laboring in Keene. My husband was indignant. 
What! his wife going out to preach? No, never! 
But the dav was not far distant when to anv such 



252 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

call he gave a cheerful acquiescence, always being 
careful to supply me with the funds needed during 
my absence for traveling and other expenses. 

Our little church was remodeled four times, and 
he always stood ready to help. I feel that he 
deserves this tribute from the woman whom he was 
so ready to help in laboring in the cause she loved. 
There are but few worshipers in the little church to- 
day. Amherst, like many other towns in New 
Hampshire, has no business enterprise to hold its 
young people within its borders. The twenty min- 
isters who have labored there in the last forty years 
are scattered far and wide. Some have crossed the 
river — Rev. Samuel Hammond, of New York Con- 
ference, Rev. B. W. Chase, and it may be others. 
God wonderfully blessed the labors of Brothers 
Merrill, Simmons, Pilkington, Chase, Bean, Noyes, 
and others. The labors of Bro. Wolfe, an Evan- 
gelist, who came to assist the pastor, Rev. W. R. 
Dille, of Ohio, were greatly blessed. The whole 
town seemed to be moved. I quote from my diary : 

" January 21, 1879. Glory to God for this day ! 
The greatest break down yet. I have never before 
seen anything like it in Amherst Oh, God, be 
pleased still to answer prayer, yea, the prayers of 
thy little ones, scattered though they may be. Oil ! 
sweep Amherst, I pray." 



GLEANINGS. 253 

"January 23, 1879. The Word is powerful. 
Many over from Milford. The churches somewhat 
aroused. 0, God! mightily stir the people. Yfe 
can not let Thee go except Thou bless us. Discomfit 
Sanballat and Tobias. I believe Thou wilt. Bros. 
Wolfe and Dille stayed till near midnight. Oh, God, 
help these clear brothers to hold on to Thee by an 
all conquering faith." 

"January 25, 1879. Children's meeting. Oh, 
Lord, let these children reflect, and may Thy Holy 
Spirit lead them in the right way. Several think 
they have given their hearts to the Savior. God 
bless them. No break in the evening till the second 
meeting, when two young men, brothers, came for- 
ward. Their mother, with the open Bible in her 
hands, came forward, read from it, and gave it to 
her sons as the 'Man of their counsel.' Oh, God, 
Thou didst see that sight. Remember those dear 
boys, I pray." 

"January 26, 1879. Brother Wolfe spoke on 
sanctification. Very hard upon the use of tobacco. 
Oh ! that God may use his words for the good of 
souls. Spoke in the afternoon on the conversion of 
children; words full of tenderness. God prosper 
the work of his hands. In the evening, a sermon on 
Noah and the ark. A sharp, cutting rebuke to 
scoffers ; a solemn warning to those who heed not 



254 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

God's word. An after meeting, when the voice of 
confession and forgiveness was heard." 

February 5 gives a record of many forward at the 
altar, and the same is true of several succeeding 
days. February 11 has a record of a very solemn 
sermon on Belshazzar's Feast, which was Brother 
Wolfe's closing sermon. Many, many souls were 
blessed. " True Methodism is religion in earnest." 
This little Methodist Church in Amherst has been 
an excellent feeder for other churches. 

Before closing I want to make an earnest plea to 
the young who may read this book. Be true to your- 
selves and to your God. Stand ready to give a rea- 
son for the hope that is in you. Don't be afraid to 
comfort the sick or visit the dying. When a child 
my mother took me to see an old lady upon her 
death bed. When she saw me she said : " Let the 
child come to me." Her dying blessing is with me 
yet. Soon she said : u Now, my Joshua, take me 
in." I asked my mother what she meant, and she 
told me she was asking Jesus to take her into His 
blessed home above. Since that time dying has not 
seemed such a dreadful thing to me. If we are pre- 
pared we just walk into Father's guest chamber. 

"Oh! to be there, and its glories to share, 
To lean on Jesus' breast." 



GLEANINGS. 255 

While still a young woman in my English home, 
I was sent for by a young man about my own age to 
visit him on his death bed. Our little chapel was 
lighted with candles, and in his boyish recklessness 
he had taken sparrows in his pocket to the meeting, 
and then he let them fly, that they might extinguish 
the lights. This seemed to trouble him greatly. I 
prayed with him. How many things that young 
people do thoughtlessly come before them and 
trouble them, either on a dying bed or after a lapse 
of years, when the Holy Spirit sets their sins in 
order before them. 

An old farmer, who had been very profane, was 
lying quite ill. I went to see him, and asked him if 
I might pray with him. Perhaps the novelty of 
hearing prayer from a girl in her teens might have 
had some weight with him, for he granted my 
request. I read to him and prayed with him. When 
the Episcopal Minister called to see him he said : 
u No! I want that girl that prays without a book. 
Prays out of her heart." Dear old man. The lion 
was turned into a lamb. I often wonder if I shall 
meet him in glory! I trust so. 

God put it into my heart to work for Him in 
many ways. Sometimes by writing letters, some- 
times by distributing tracts. I remember putting a 



256 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

letter in the lining of the hat of a profane young 
man. 

Dear young friends, lose no opportunity to work 
for souls. Do not be sponges; always absorbing, 
never giving out; be artesian wells. As I stood 
beside one in California how I understood, as never 
before, the meaning of the words : " I will be in 
them a well of water, springing up into everlasting 
life." Oh ! yes, dear children of God, let it not only 
bubble up, but let it run over, reaching and blessing 
humanity. 

Keep in touch with the missionary work. The 
first years dear Clara Cushman spent in China her 
letters to me were a veritable inspiration. I could 
not refrain from speaking and writing, as oppor- 
tunity offered, on the blessed work of missions ; and 
I bless God that the fire is not dead in my soul 
to-day, although the awful flood of intemperance 
which has swept over our fair land in these last few 
years has made such demands on my time and 
strength that I have had little left for any other 
public work. " God so loved the world that He 
gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever be- 
lieveth in Him should not perish, but should have 
everlasting life ; " this always stands prominently 
before my mind, and is my incentive to obey the 



GLEANINGS. 257 

blessed command : " Go ye into all the world and 
preach the Gospel to every creature." 

Dear young Christians, pray, work, give; and 
your souls will be fat and flourishing. " Work, for 
the night is coming." 

The year 1884 will be memorable to me while 
life shall last. It had seemed to me the dear Lord 
had said : " Child, thou hast had mingled cups, 
sometimes bitter indeed. I shall leave thee one 
chalice with a little sweetness in it." When my 
second grandson was put into my arms the attendant 
said : u Take him ; he is yours. God has given his 
life in answer to your prayers." I took the little one 
as from the Lord. During the two short years that 
followed I felt a conviction that God would either 
call him early to Himself, or that he would be made 
a great blessing to the world. Often, when praying 
for the little fellow, was this thought impressed 
upon me. He was thoughtful beyond his years, 
asking me about the future life, the raising of the 
dead, and kindred subjects. Though I loved all my 
grandchildren tenderly, there was something pecu- 
liar in my affection for him. Early in the year his 
dear father died. His son went down before the 
noon day. Never can I forget the sight of the 
widowed mother and her three boys weeping beside 
their dead. Before the year closed the three boys 



258 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

were on sick beds. Two recovered, and, thank God, 
at this writing, are still living; may it be to bless 
the world. 

Dear Byron was gathered home to be with Jesus. 
My chalice was shattered, its nectar all spilled ; but 
blessed be God — 

"We shall meet beyond the river, 
Where the surges cease to roll." 

"We shall meet with many a loved one, 

That was torn from our embrace ; 
We shall listen to their voices, 

And behold them face to face ; 
All the cherished and the longed for, 

Those whose graves are moist with tears, 
Those whose absence made life weary 

Through the dark, the tedious years." 

"We shall meet those buds of promise, 

Blighted by death's chilling hand ; 
We shall see their fadeless beauty 

Blooming in the goodly land ; 
Nevermore our hearts lie bleeding 

'Neath the strokes of sorrow's rod ; 
Never shall love's bands be sundered 

In the paradise of God." 

Nevermore — thank God for that, I've reached 
my three score years and ten, but oh ! the prospect 
brightens, brightens day by day. I've had a stormy 



GLEANINGS. 259 

passage, but Jesus has had me in charge, and all the 
way along I have been able to say and know — 

"My barque is wafted to the strand, 

My breath divine ; 
And on the helm there rests a hand 

Other than mine." 

Yes, it has been always the blessed, pierced hand 
of my precious Christ. 

Thoughts on the Last Night of 1884. 

Farewell! Old Year, farewell! 

With all thy sighs and tears ; 
And blessings from God's loving hand 

Beyond my doubts and fears. 

Eyes have been dim, cheeks wet, 

As mothers often are, 
When thoughts of those she loves so well 

Send her to God in prayer. 

O blessed hiding place ! 

Where aching hearts may come 
And lay their sorrows, all unseen, 

And plead, though lips be dumb. 

Dear Christ of Bethlehem, 

Who earnest on earth to live, 
To suffer ; yea, to bleed and die, 

That comfort Thou mightest give — 



260 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

I'll take from Thee this cup, 

If mingled by Thy skill, 
And ask for grace to drink it up, 

And suffer Thy sweet will. 

Our precious one is gone — 

How well-beloved was he — 
Th evangels bore his spirit home 

His Savior's face to see. 

The joy of Grandma's heart — 

I loved him, Oh ! so well — 
Death threw his cruel dart, 

Shattered the casket fell. 

A shining angel band 

Bore thee, beloved, away ; 
And in the glory land 

I know thou art to-day. 

No sin can reach thee more, 

No sorrow, care, nor pain ; 
Dear Byron, on that shining shore 

We'll meet, yes meet again. 

It helps wonderfully in loosening the ties that 
bincTus to earth, as one by one our loved ones pass 
beyond the veil that hides that Better Land from 
our view. Nearly a year ago my sick husband and 
myself were taking dinner with a loved family in 
Nashua. As we sat at the table the host questioned 
as to what our united ages would be. I reckoned, 



GLEANINGS. 261 

and said it would make a good newspaper item : 
four hundred and forty-four. The eldest but one, 
being eighty-four years old, is still living. Three of 
the six have passed away. The genial, warm hearted 
host of that day will to-day be carried to " the house 
appointed for all living." 

My dear husband passed quietly away after his 
third shock of paralysis in a little over a month from 
that date. His voice will no longer greet me on my 
return with the words : " Well, wife, did you have 
a good time? Are you satisfied? Was the gather- 
ing a success ? " He was never an opposer of 
woman's work. I quote briefly from his obituary 
published in a local paper: 

OBITUARY. 

Charles Richardson, Esq., died at his home in 
Amherst, 6th inst., aged 81 years, 9 months. For 
two or three years he has been waning in physical 
and mental vigor, finally terminating in an attack of 
paralysis ten days before his death. 

"Mr. Richardson filled several offices, among 
them those of town clerk, town treasurer, represen- 
tative to the State Legislature, selectman, postmas- 
ter, and registrar of deeds. 

u Mr. R. was a man of much more than average 
ability. He was a strong man in various directions. 
His perceptions were quick, his judgment sound, 
and he was always calm and considerate in action. 



262 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

He was tenacious of his opinions and firm in their 
advocacy, and ever ready to contribute liberal^ of 
his means for their support. But though active and 
decided in political work there was no taint of per- 
sonal rancour to those opposed, and he was widely 
esteemed and emploj^ed in business by all parties. 

" As a husband, father, and step-father, he was a 
model of tender kindness and patient devotion. He 
was not a member of any church, yet the clergymen 
who spoke at his funeral, upon whose preaching he 
had been for years a constant attendant, expressed 
their conviction that in Mr. R. they had an intelli- 
gent and thoughtful listener. A wide circle of sur- 
viving acquaintances will cherish his memory as a 
good and true man. 

" The funeral was at his late residence, May 8th, 
at 1 p. m., and was largely attended by nephews and 
nieces from Massachusetts and this State, by friends 
from neighboring towns, and by neighbors. Rev. A. 
G. McGown read Scripture selections. Rev. Wm. 
Woods, of Milford, offered the opening prayer. Rev. 
Dr. J. G. Davis and Rev. J. M. Bean, of West 
Rindge, both former pastors of the departed, deliv- 
ered fitting addresses, justly characterizing the de- 
ceased, and spoke appropriate words of sympathy to 
the bereaved, the latter closing with a fervent 
prayer." 

Indulge nt reader, in the foregoing pages I have 
given, very briefly and imperfectly, I am sure, a few 
of the trials, the joys, and the sorrows of my life. 



GLEANINGS. 263 

Had all been given, all of the dealings of my Heav- 
enly Father with His child, as He has sought to 
refine, to take away the dross, the book would have 
swelled to mammoth proportions. As it is, I com- 
mend this record of an eventful life to my covenant 
keeping God, only asking that He will use it to His 
own glory. 

I can indeed say this day that the promise of 
God to the tribe of Asher, as given by His servant 
Moses (Deut. 33: 25) ; 'Thy shoes shall be iron and 
brass; and as thy days, so shall thy strength be," 
has been fulfilled in my behalf. To God be all the 
glory ! 

" Only waiting till the shadows 

Are a little longer grown ; 
Only waiting till the glimmer 

Of the day's last gleam has flown ; 
Till the light of earth is faded 

From the heart once full of day ; 
Till the stars of heaven are breaking 

Thro' the twilight soft and gray. 

Only waiting till the reapers 
Have the last sheaf gathered home ; 

For the summer time is faded, 
And the autumn leaves have come ; 

Quickly, reapers! quickly gather 
The last ripe hours of my heart ; 

For the bloom of life is withered, 



264 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

And I'm waiting to depart. 
Waiting, waiting, 
Only waiting to depart." 

The following poem learned in my teens, has 
been a life long comfort to me. I would that our 
young people of to-day were storing their minds 
with some of the precious gems of English litera- 
ture which include much of the hymnology of the 
church of God. 

JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

"Lo! Justice, with a brow severe, 

With eyes that never shed a tear, 

Upon Mount Sinai takes her stand, 

With the stone tables in her hand, 

Her two edged sword she sternly draws, 

Then points it to her broken laws. 

Now sounds her trumpet through the mount, 

To summon all to their account. 

And can I bear her piercing eye 

Fixed on my heart without a sigh, 

Or see her lift her awful scale 

And yet not tremble nor grow pale? 

She calls for me with voice severe — 

I dare not, yet I must appear. 

Oh ! whither can a sinner fly ? 

Lord, save me, save me, or I die. 

Heaven opens, and I see above 

Mercy come down on wings of love ; 



GLEANINGS. 265 

Sweet smiles upon her face arise, 
While tear-drops glisten in her eyes. 
She comes arrayed in robes of light, 
Surrounded with a rainbow bright. 
The lightning's flash, the thunder's roar, 
As she descends prevail no more. 
She passes o'er the barren sand, 
And lo ! it blooms a fruitful land ; 
She lights upon the mountain's brow, 
And flowers adorn its summit now ; 
Her placid face, her beaming eye, 
Forbid my dark despondency, 
While sweetly in my trembling ear 
She whispers, " Child, no longer fear. ,r 
E'en the stern face of Justice smiled, 
As Mercy spoke in accents mild ; 
" Stay, elder sister, come with me; 
We'll try this cause at Calvary." 
Forth they proceed. I closely cling 
Under the shade of Mercy's wing. 
They bear me to their Sovereign Lord, 
To wait my Case for His award. 
First Justice, with her charge begins, 
And shows the record of my sins ; 
And then, from her unchanging laws 
Sentence of condemnation draws ; 
I tremble — all the charge is true ? 
What can a helpless sinner do? 
"Yet, ere the Judge my fate decree, 
O, Mercy, wilt thou plead for me?" 
She hastened to the Judge's side, 



266 MARY W. F. RICHARDSON. 

She pleaded that for me he died, 

Fulfilled the law, my sentence bore, 

And Justice could demand no more. 

The holy sisters then embrace, 

And bear me to the Savior's face, • 

His glory ever more to view, 

And praise His love and Justice, too." 




